Crash
by officeladyhikaru
Summary: The same accident that kills Kaoru's parents ends up filling the void in her life, and revealing that she is not the girl she thinks she is. (Biologically authentic gender bender, alternate timeline prequel; trigger warning: suicide attempt - later chapters)
1. The Accident

**[Three things:**

**1. This story will be a gender-bender, which means that one of the characters' gender is changed. **

**2. C****ertain aspects of this fic are dedicated to Renge, my favorite fanatic Host Club manager. Guess which ones! **

**3. Don't read too much into Kaoru's last name at the beginning of this story. This will not be a crossover fic; I just liked the sound of it. **

**Happy reading.]**

…

"Come on, Kaoru, give me a chance."

The tall, narrow-hipped girl did not turn around as she walked briskly down the street, the boy trailing a few steps behind. Her long red ponytail swung jauntily in time with her step, and she was looking at the sky, smiling.

"You know, I could," she said, her voice cheerfully dignified, "But I cannot think of a single reason why I'd want to."

"Goddamn little She-Devil," the boy muttered under his breath.

"For the record, insulting me won't help," she answered without breaking stride, her voice almost sing-song.

She was returning from basketball practice, and her mood was nearly cloudless. She'd said goodbye to the last of her girls - as the team had a habit of walking home together, tarrying to chat by each girl's house before saying goodbye. Kaoru lived farthest away. That day, practice had gone well and gossip had gone better, and not even the sullen classmate who had begun to follow her could ruin the afternoon.

"Oh, come on, you know you're proud of it."

That much was true. The moniker wasn't entirely undeserved, as Kaoru's being an odd sort of bird had always been her calling card. Though on the quiet side when not with the basketball clique, she was definitely given to stirring up trouble. Once, she had "borrowed" a field line striper to write ancient runes into the baseball field. Time and again, she would show up to school in a boys' uniform, and sometimes in various cosplays - the latter antics usually ending in her getting marched to the principal's office and being sent home to change. Her school performance, too, was spotty. At times she spent entire days playing computer games under her desk, hardly concealing her boredom. At other times, she made the class period into an extended conversation between her and the teacher about increasingly obscure aspects of the subject. And then there was the notable occasion when she had volunteered to work on the high school's webpage, only to deck it out with a banner of a borderline X-rated nature.

Whenever she was asked why she did was she did, she'd smile in her dignified, cheerful way, and say that it was to break up the monotony.

"I AM proud," she spun around, having reached the gate of her house. "But today I don't really feel like free bubble tea."

She ran up the garden path and disappeared with a flick of the hair and a slam of the door.

The truth was, she probably would not have minded some bubble tea. She hardly ever said no to dates - once again out of boredom. She also did not like to be alone if she could help it. The truth was, she ALWAYS felt lonely. No matter where she was and who was by her side, boy or girl, it always felt like something - or somebody - was missing. The feeling would catch up with her without warning, and whenever it did she'd let her happy and healthy air deflate a bit as her mind began to forage and something tugged under her ribs. Suddenly, every connection she'd ever made would start feeling like a lie, and the world became so boring and empty and hollow that it was hardly worth crying over. And it was worst, of course, when she was quite objectively alone, locked inside four walls, and the only sound was that of a freeway far away.

Except that day it was worth it - because that day would be about family. She took off her hoodie and let her bag fall where it would as she made her way into the small living room, smiling hello at the Mickey clock on the wall, the Minnie calendar, the Donald Duck shoe stand and the Pluto cover on the couch opposite the television. Kaoru's parents were Disney freaks and no mistake, every inch of the little suburban house a testament to the fact. That weekend had been their parents' anniversary, and they had gone away to a hot spring for a couple of days. Now it was Sunday, though, and they were due back any minute, having promised their daughter that they would all go out to dinner.

Kaoru loved her parents, though it was clear as day that they couldn't possibly have given birth to her. The three of them had always been their own little unit, as both her parents had been only children, both sets of grandparents were deceased, and the only extended family lived in faraway Kyushu. Every day off, the three of them spent together. Sometimes, they accompanied dad fly-fishing, as he was an aficionado of that sort of thing. At other times they'd go hiking and shrine-visiting to please mother. Whenever they did something like that together, Kaoru almost managed to forget her loneliness. And that weekend, when both mom and dad were away, Kaoru had made her parents a gift to surprise them - a hanging mobile with 22 paper cranes, one for every year they'd been married.

She had just turned on the TV for background noise as she rifled through drawers for wrapping paper when her phone began playing the opening chords of the song "Shissou."

"Is this Kaoru Suzumiya?" she heard a sterile voice on other end of the line.

"Yes."

"Miss Suzumiya, there's been an accident."

…

"Miss Suzumiya, I am very sorry."

Kaoru stared at her feet to keep the room from swimming. If she didn't, she had the distinct feeling that she might float away. The noise of the waiting area and the emergency room beyond blurred into a faraway hum as the staff went on tending to the victims of the crash - a five-car pileup on a major highway headed into the city.

At first, Kaoru had not registered the words. She had heard them, to be sure, but they held no connection to reality. When they asked her if she needed a minute, she had nodded, but it might have been five minutes or five hours by now. The only feeling she had was one of falling - off a precipice that had no end. She wondered, vaguely, why she didn't feel afraid, or gutted, or even incredulous. It was like pressing a key on a piano to find the strings had been severed.

"Excuse me, Miss?"

Kaoru heard a soft voice and raised her eyes to find a woman standing in front of her. She looked to be middle-aged, but was still beautiful, with a face like a painting and eyes that looked a little sunken. She wore an elegant tweed suit, a hat to match, and her gloved hands cradled a leather clutch purse. A man stood just behind her, holding her elbow.

"I'm sorry to bother you, but may we talk?"

Kaoru blinked and nodded. The couple did not look like hospital employees or anyone she knew, but it made no difference.

"Please don't take this the wrong way, but you... look a great deal like our son," said the woman.

The words seemed to come from far away, and Kaoru struggled to engage her mind, but it was like an engine that refused to turn.

"Your… son?" Why did it matter that she looked like someone's son? Who WERE these people, anyway? And how could she resemble THEIR son? She was red-headed, with hazel-eyes and Hapa features, while the two of them seemed to be Yamato stock going back to the first emperor. She felt a mild annoyance - her first emotion in a while - and did her best to hide it as she looked back quizzically at the couple.

The man gave the woman an IPhone he had been holding, and she handed it to the Kaoru. The girl took it, and her stomach did a triple-flip.

It was a facebook (™) photo of… HERSELF. Or it would have been if her hair was short, parted on the side instead of the middle, and gelled in place to look artfully windswept. The being in the picture smiled at her - a brilliant, practiced picture-day smile - and wore a cerulean-blue blazer, the insignia on the lapel spelling "OR" in gold letters.

Is this a joke? - Kaoru thought, scrolling to see more of the page. "Hikaru Hitachiin," the info box red - Hitachiin, like the fashion house? she half-registered herself thinking - "Ouran Academy, High School Year 1." Ouran, as far as she knew, was a posh prep school. Kaoru glanced again at the photo, and then at the couple in front of her, who were looking at her with a mixture of trepidation and hope.

"I… don't understand…" she said.

"Well, he's our adopted son, technically" - the man spoke up, putting his hand over his wife's as a spasm ran over her lips and she lowered her eyes. "Although he's no less ours for that reason. We believe you and he may be… related."

Kaoru looked down at the photo and wanted to feel something - or at least think something - but nothing came. The boy's smile looked like it was on loan from a Hollywood movie - and thus somehow barren. She had a hard time believing he really existed. In any case, given the day's events the idea of family she never knew existed was not something she was ready to process.

"My parents just died in a car crash," she said slowly, fumbling for the words that would get her meaning across without being rude.

"Oh" - the woman had extracted a pack of tissues from her purse, and was about to take one out, but changed her mind and handed the package to Kaoru instead. "I'm so… sorry." She sat down next to the girl.

"I was adopted too, but I lived with them my whole life" - Kaoru answered the wordless question in the woman's eyes, surprised by how matter-of-fact her words sounded even as the tears rose, stinging, to her throat. Both of them were silent for a while.

"I'm sorry, I didn't ask, what do you call yourself?"

"Kaoru."

"Kaoru, my name is Yuzuha." She glanced at the picture on the phone still in the girl's hands, along with the pack of tissues. "And this is my husband" - she gestured - "Yuzuke. Were your parents in the large accident that happened today on Shuto Expressway?"

The girl nodded.

"Our son was in the same crash, and he's in critical condition. I just thought that if there isn't anyone here with you, we could stay together for the time being."


	2. The Melancholy of Kaoru Suzumiya

"Miss Suzumiya?" A nurse had materialized before Kaoru. "Is there anyone I can call for you? We need to find someone to be your guardian for the time being. Perhaps your grandparents or extended family?"

Kaoru looked at the nurse dully. The young, uniformed woman's features were folded into a look of practiced commiseration.

"Uh… The only other family I have is in Kyushu. But I don't know them all that well." Come to think of it, she didn't even have their numbers in her phone - they saw each other perhaps twice a year.

"Friends of the family, then? Or neighbors?"

Kaoru tried to ramp up the gears of her mind, but they complained and sputtered. The nurse had a point. She was only fifteen and a minor, so living alone was not an option. But where would she go, now that her parents were gone? And what would she do? She HAD people she called friends, of course, and so did the Suzumiyas, but she could not think of a single person she wanted to be around right then - or anytime soon.

"My name is Yuzuha Hitachiin, and I'm a friend of the family." Kaoru started - the magnitude of day's events had far exceeded her capacity to keep up, and her recent encounter with the tweed-suited woman managed to completely slip her mind. But Yuzuha had risen, and extended her hand graciously to the nurse. Her voice was almost buoyant. "I'll be happy to take care of Kaoru for a while. Though of course the arrangements should be left to the actual family."

Kaoru was about to object - she barely knew Yuzuha after all, and part of her was unsettled by the woman's inordinate interest in her. After all, the only thing that linked them - as far as Kaoru had been able to digest - was a series of pixels on a telephone screen. But then again, the Hitachiins would probably not be going anywhere anytime soon if their son was in critical condition. That would mean she would not be going anywhere either, and that suited Kaoru just fine. The hospital was a safe, neutral territory, and it was better than going home, where she would be around all the things mom and dad would never come back to.

"Well, good. That's... lucky," said the nurse, accepting Yuzuha's handshake and looking as quizzical as her professional demeanor would allow. It had probably not escaped her notice that Hitachiin was the name of another patient who recently arrived half-dead. The young woman turned to Kaoru. "Would you like to say goodbye?" - she asked.

…

Kaoru's walked into the room with the doctor and the nurse, and immediately felt like she had been shot. There was no pain, just shock - followed by a whole new level of numbness.

Her parents lay on two identical tables, covered by sheets except for their faces, and medical machines stood silently around them like further witnesses to Kaoru's grief. They had both died instantly on the scene, the doctor had told her, probably hoping it would be a consolation.

Of course. Of course they had died instantly. The Suzumiyas drove a compact eggshell of a Mazda where the Hitachiins' son, who went to a posh prep school, would have had an armored limousine. That's why HE was alive and THEY were dead. An eddy of anger stirred in the pit of Kaoru's stomach.

But it didn't matter. Being angry would not bring them back, because they were gone. Irreversibly gone. As she stood and looked at them from across the room, they seemed like mere effigies of her parents. But as she came closer she saw that there was no denying it - it was definitely them. They were still and lifeless, and their skin had an irreversible dullness about it. The blood and dirt had been cleaned away from their faces, but streaks of her mother's eyeshadow remained smeared across her temple - the purple shade she had was so convinced became her no matter how much Kaoru had tried to reason with her over the years. And her father, though both his eyes were swollen shut, had died with a smile on his face - the same unmistakeable, slightly crooked smile he gave Kaoru whenever he got a call from school about her antics, but would tell her in confidence that he still thought she was a good kid.

Yes, he had died with a smile, but he would never smile again. He would never smile at her as he told her to catch up and stop being a sissy when the three of them hiked up mountains around Tokyo to take in views of the city. He would never smile and hum opera arias as he cooked _somen,_ his specialty, on hot summer days. And mom would never smile either as she watched her favorite Edo-era costume dramas and poured Kaoru a glass of watered-down Umeshu with Saturday dinner. They'd never smile as they took pictures of her during her graduation ceremony - that is, if she ever WERE to graduate and not get expelled. They'd never smile and wave in the rear view mirror as she drove away on her honeymoon - assuming she WERE to get married one day, which she doubted. Truth be told, Kaoru had always doubted that the things her parents had wanted for her would happen - she simply could not imagine them for herself. But now that she knew her parents would never get their wish, she regretted things she had never been sure she wanted. Because they had loved her. She was not their blood, but they'd loved her complete with all her flaws, her delinquent antics, and her odd looks, which made people continuously peg her as either an Ainu extract or a foreigner. She had not always taken the time to thank them and to tell them that she felt the same, but she knew it. And she was sure that she would never be loved that way again.

She felt something rupture inside her as she began to cry. She cried for a long time.

…

The hospital had separate "serenity" rooms for families of patients who were in a bad way, and Kaoru was sitting on the couch in one of them. Yuzuha and Yuzuke had followed her, having relocated from the emergency room waiting area, and sat quietly at a polite distance. They were indeed not going anywhere - both had pulled out their phones and tablets, and seemed to be firing off emails and doing whatever work they could given the circumstances.

Several hours had passed and Kaoru's eyes had run out of tears, but she still felt ragged and raw. Her face stung as the salt dried and pulled the skin together, and she hiccuped violently from time to time. Yuzuha had brought her a cup of water, which Kaoru still clutched in her hands, and placed a blanket around her shoulders. Kaoru had noticed that she still hadn't removed her gloves, and that her hands were childishly small.

"You're probably feeling a lot of things you can't process right now, Kaoru," Yuzuha had said, kneeling down so she could catch the girl's eyes. "But we're here for you. You don't have to go it alone. Anything we can do to help, we'll gladly do. Just let us know."

Anything. Yes, anything. That was what they all said - that if there was anything they could do to help… But what could anyone do? They couldn't turn back the clock. They couldn't undo what happened. Life as she knew it had been abruptly cancelled, but who - except her - would realistically be able to do what it took to build a new one? Where would she even start? It was all so heavy. And if she had always felt a little lonely, the loneliness was now a deep, dark ocean, with miles and miles of water overhead. All she wanted was bury herself in the sand like a stingray and watch the currents of life pass her by.

And yet, it was odd, wasn't it? That life was indeed as unpredictable and erratic as the fate of each of the molecules of water in the ocean. One moment you think you'll be having dinner with your parents, and the next you hear that they're gone forever. And yet somehow that day's accident had brought her face to face with people who claimed that their adopted son looked just like her. As far as coincidences went, it was a pretty big one. It if were really true - and they had not created a fake picture and a fake facebook (tm) page for some nefarious purpose - that would mean that she had a brother, and at some point they had gotten separated and adopted by different families. It seemed like a ridiculous thing to latch onto - after all, even if they did share DNA, who knew if they'd have anything in common after fifteen years apart? What would they even say to each other? And yet, given the alternative, given the vortex of the last few hours…

"Mrs. Hitachiin?" Kaoru said. The woman had introduced herself as Yuzuha as if she expected Kaoru to call her that, but the girl still felt more than a little uncomfortable doing so. "So your son is… my brother, is that right?"

"Yes. You're fifteen, born on June 9, right?"

"Yes…"

"Then he's your twin brother."

Kaoru paused, trying to think of the right way to phrase her question.

"Did you ever… know that I existed?"

"No, Kaoru, we did not - until today. I just had my attorney look you up - I'm sorry. It seems you must have been adopted first. When we got there, there was only Hikaru, and we opted not to know anything about his family. Although… Perhaps we should have." She looked down at her tablet, almost apologetically.

Kaoru wondered if Yuzuha simply felt sorry for her because she'd been tricked out of a life of luxury. Was this why she was being so kind? But Kaoru decided it didn't matter - she would probably never know for sure, anyway.

"What is… Hikaru like?" she asked.

Yuzuha looked up and Kaoru thought she saw a shadow of tenderness tinged with sadness run across the woman's eyes.

"You know, he's always been a good boy. Boys will be boys, of course, and we've had our share of the usual with him, but overall Yuzuke and I have been very blessed. Although…" - she paused to ponder - "He's always looked a little sad when he thought no one was looking. And he's never been passionate about anything. He always seemed to approach life like he was going through the motions."

Kaoru felt like someone had sliced her right down the chest. She was just about to reply when a doctor knocked on the half-open door. He was not the doctor who had come to speak to Kaoru about her parents, but one she had not seen before.

"Mr. and Mrs. Hitachiin?" he said. "Would you like to see your son now?" His eyes darted to Kaoru, and it seemed like he assumed that she, too, was family given how much she resembled the patient.

Yuzuha rose and Yuzuke did the same almost instantly. The woman let her tablet drop to the chair where she had been sitting.

"How is he?" she asked almost too quickly, letting her mask of regal composure slip a bit.

"He hasn't woken up yet, but there should be no lasting damage from the brain bleed, and he's regaining organ function," the doctor said.

Kaoru saw Yuzuha's frame visibly collapse in relief as Yuzuke took her hand right on cue.

"He'd doing much better," the doctor added.

"Oh, goodness, thank you." Yuzuha seemed to be doing her utmost to repress the urge to run to the man and cover his face with kisses.

"If you'd like to see him, you can," the physician said with a civil smile.

"Of course, of course." Yuzuha waved her hand to motion both her husband and Kaoru to follow her.

"You… want me to come too?" Kaoru asked uncertainly, getting up.

"Yes, of course." Yuzuha took her by the shoulder and steered her out the door and down the hallway as they followed the doctor.

"But, but, but" - Kaoru protested - "What if he wakes up and sees me?" She remembered the way her stomach had flipped when she first saw Hikaru's picture, and could not begin to imagine what it would feel like to see a real person who looked like a mirror image of yourself. What if Hikaru woke up, saw her, and the shock sent him right back into a coma?

"If he shows signs of waking up, you can step behind the curtain," Yuzuha replied.

…

Kaoru paused in front of the door to the hospital room, nodding at Yuzuha and Yuzuke to indicate that she'd join them when she was ready.

She stared at the door that was open a crack, and did her best to quell the flutters in her stomach. Things were moving far too fast, and her brain - bruised and bleeding as if it, too, had been totaled in the five-car pileup - was still working overtime to catch up. First she loses her parents. Then she learns she has a twin brother. And then she learns that, just like her, he had always been a little sad. It seemed that they had at least one thing in common after all, and it was almost too much to fathom.

A part of her refused to believe it. But another part of her was sending desperate signals, deploying its full, wordless, primal arsenal, even as the familiar spot between her ribs twisted and writhed far harder than it ever done before. And yet another part of her was very afraid of what she might find beyond that door. She could not possibly handle another disappointment that day. What if the doctor had been wrong, and she would find out she had a brother only to get there in time to watch him die? Or worse, what if he wanted nothing to do with her, and felt nothing for her?

She pushed open the door.

….

Hikaru was floating atop a dark ocean, and above him lay a night sky that was just as deep and pitch-black. He felt peaceful. With a far corner of his mind, he found himself thinking that he would not mind going on like that even as the world clattered and lumbered along somewhere very far away. He'd always lived with a strange feeling of detachment, as if he wouldn't have cared if it all disappeared. There had always been two types of people in the world: him and everyone else. The latter sort had never been of much import to Hikaru, and much of the time the feeling was mutual. The Host Club had made things a little better, but not by much. Being fawned over by girls stroked his ego, but in the end it was only another way to pass the time. The last thing he could remember as gravity shifted and an airbag hit him in the face, smelling of burnt rubber cupcakes, was that all people really did in this life was wait for the day of judgment. What did it matter when exactly it would come?

And then a strange being appeared out of the darkness. The person had his face, except the hair was pulled back and the bangs were cut straight across the forehead. And they - or she, it would seem - had small hillocks on her chest, perhaps the only thing that pegged her as a female.

But most of all it was the face that burned into his consciousness. It expressed all the pain and loneliness he always felt but never showed, and sent electricity through his brain and spinal cord. The odd being mouthed something, stretching out a hand - only to vanish again.

"Wait… what?!" he screamed. He wanted to scramble up and chase after her and shout "wait, come back here - who are you, and why are you so sad?" But no matter how much he tried to thrash his limbs, he could not feel them, and the darkness only grew deeper.

Still, the damage was done. Even as he floated atop the deep, dark ocean, he felt like he had been jolted awake, never to sleep again.

…

Yuzuha and Yuzuke were standing by the side of the bed, and the husband was holding the wife by the shoulders as the two gazed in the same direction.

Seeing her parents bruised and lifeless had felt like getting shot, and Kaoru was almost sure she would be able to handle anything after that. But when her gaze fell to the bed, her knees nearly bucked.

It was like looking in a mirror to discover your face bruised and lacerated. But far more shocking was that the boy named Hikaru really wasn't just a collection of pixels on a screen. He was a being of flesh and blood that ran through bluish veins just under his skin's translucent surface. And though he was wrapped in a cocoon of blankets, his chest was rising and falling underneath even as a machine echoed his heartbeat with punctuated beeps. Yuzuha's hands were molded around one of his.

Kaoru crossed the room and stood by the side of the bed opposite Yuzuha and Yuzuke. Even as the boy slept, there was something melancholy and heartbreakingly stoic about the line of his eyebrows and the angle of his jaw. His eyes were nearly closed, but when she saw a faint sliver of hazel-colored iris it felt like someone had sliced her right down the chest again. The sobs came on their own accord as she moved the blanket and took the boy's other hand.

She still could not believe it. She felt weightless again, and had to focus her eyes on the IV machine across the bed to keep her head from reeling. Because the feeling that she had been truly unprepared for was the… absence of a feeling. For the first time ever, the nagging tug of loneliness under her ribs was gone. Completely. As if it had burned itself out with wordless smoke signals when she was standing outside the door. No, rather, it was as if it had never been there. For once, nothing and no one was missing. Everything was just where it belonged - and after a life of emptiness it was almost too much to handle.

Hikaru, please… She still could not bear to call him brother, not even to herself. A brother was someone you were acquainted with through and through, someone who had always been there - but the feeling she had? If she didn't know better, she would have thought that this is what people meant when they said that finding your soul mate made you feel whole.

Hikaru… Don't die. Please. Wake up. Whatever you're sad about, we can be sad together. Please don't leave me when I've only just found you.

She stood there, wheezing barely audibly, for a few moments. Hot tears were spilling down her cheeks, and they stung the skin around her eyes, already irritated by the salt from a few hours ago. She squeezed the boy's hand, and though it might have been her imagination, for a moment it felt like he was squeezing back.

And then his eyes flickered open.


	3. Hikaru's Sister

When Hikaru's eyes began to flicker open, Kaoru let go of his hand like she had been scalded and backed away, nearly stumbling, until she was behind the curtain that divided the room. Although nobody had expected Hikaru to wake so soon or so suddenly, they had all agreed that it would not be wise for him to see a mirror image of himself as he was coming out of a coma. As a consequence, when the contours of the room came into focus, Hikaru found himself in the most unremarkable of hospital beds, with his parents standing over him, a forgettable watercolor print on the wall opposite, and the neon lights of the city outside the window flickering like Christmas.

"Hikaru! Sweetie! You're awake!" Yuzuha, who had made every effort to keep a brave face over the last few hours, let her eyes melt and overflow over her cheeks as she clasped her son's hand tighter. Yuzuke, wordless and calm as ever, extended his hand to run it over Hikaru's temple and cheek. The boy saw that his father's eyes, too, were moist.

Of course. It had all been a dream. His heart was still fluttering, but the vision of a few moments ago was fading quickly, forced out by the dull, muted light of the room. For a moment, he had thought he had found an impetus, a purpose - to chase after the strange girl and find out at all costs who she was and why she was sad. But now all he felt was a void - a dull, oppressive ache from the pit of his stomach to the crown of his head, and a weakness that made his limbs feel like they weighed a thousand pounds each.

"Hey, mom… dad…" He turned his face into Yuzuke's touch and let his lips drift into a small melancholy smile. He did not have the strength to smile in his usual brilliant, Hollywood way - and why would he? If now was not the time to look as he felt, when would it ever be? The recent events were coming back to him - the screech of tires, the burnt rubber cupcakes, the wind that got knocked out of him, and then the darkness.

"Hikaru, darling," said Yuzuha, who had regained a semblance of composure even though she still held on Hikaru for dear life with one hand and to her packet of tissues with the other. "There was a car crash, but you're ALIVE, and the doctors say you'll be FINE."

"How are you feeling, son?" asked Yuzuke.

"Like a truck drove over me. But otherwise okay." Hikaru gave a sterile chuckle.

"Well, looks like the sense of humor is intact." Yuzuke allowed himself a small grin as he gently ruffled his son's hair.

Hikaru's sense of humor was intact indeed - or rather, his favorite defense mechanism was. Because as he looked back at their tearful, ecstatic faces he could not help but realize, for the umpteenth time, that there HAD to be something wrong with him. True, every inch of his body felt battered and bruised - but there he was, in the company of loved ones, having escaped with his life. And yet it was almost as if he had been… disappointed to wake up. As if the world, once again, held nothing or promise or interest. And his parents - they had always been good parents, and done their best for him, but they, too, were their old selves: trying too hard to put a good face on things as they played at being a Happy Family. From the time he had first come to notice he was different - different from them, and different from everybody - they had tried harder and harder every day. But it was never any use. The more they tried, the deeper he sank into his own world, feeling guiltier by the day. And it seemed today would be no different. Waking up from a coma had not made for any sort of transcendent experience.

In fact, the experience was quickly made even less transcendent by what seemed like fifty doctors and nurses, who crowded into the room in rapid succession minutes after he woke up. There was a flurry of taking down vital signs, testing reflexes and eye movements, and asking him what he thought the date was, along with his name and that of the prime minister. A half an hour must have passed before the rigamarole that apparently accompanied coming out of a coma came to an end, and Hikaru was allowed to rest. He had been lying back peacefully against the pillows, resting everything including his eyes, when Yuzuha finally hazarded to pop the question.

"Hikaru, are you tired? Are you up for meeting someone?"

"Meeting someone? Who?" Who else could there BE? - he thought - opening his eyes and scanning the room for signs of another visitor, not a bit apprehensively. - And what could they WANT? They weren't going to ask him again to reel off as many animals as he could in a minute because it was an oh-so-critical test of mental condition?

"Well, this is a bit of a recent development," Yuzuha said, "But you've got a sister."

"A…. sister?" Hikaru made a move to push himself up with his elbows in surprise, and Yuzuke put a hand on his shoulder. "Mom, you're not… Are you?" For a second, his world-weariness was knocked clean out of his head by the thought of his parents still doing something he didn't want to imagine.

"No, Hikaru," Yuzuha laughed. "It turns out you've got a sister who's your age - in fact, she's your twin."

"A-a- a TWIN sister?" Hikaru made another move to sit up again, and this time Yuzuke let him shift a few inches up on the bed.

The girl. In the coma dream. With his face. No… It couldn't possibly… His SISTER? He had a… SISTER?

"Yes," his mother said. "We just met her today, in this hospital. Quite by chance."

A sister. All his life, he had thought he was the only person like himself, and now it turns out not to be true - there was someone just like him all along. It was as if the whole world was had been turned on its head.

"Well, where is she? Is she okay? Can I see her?" Hikaru felt like he'd been stricken by lighting, and was still afraid to believe it. He half-expected both parents to shout "psych!" at any moment, for bright stage-lights to come on, and for the hospital room to turn into the set of a ridiculous reality show.

"She's perfectly fine. And yes, you can see her," Yuzuha replied. "Although, fair warning - when I say she's your twin, I mean she's the exact, spitting image of you." She cast a hesitant glance at her son, but his expression was still the same blend of rapt expectation and half-disbelief. "Kaoru, will you come in here?" she called.

A girl stepped around the curtain that divided the room. Hikaru's jaw fell open, and he was fairly sure his eyes would have popped out if they were not attached.

It was Her. There were absolutely, positively no two ways about it. Straight-cut bangs and bee-sting breasts and all.

It really was like looking in a mirror. They even had nearly the same build, as she was tall for a girl, thin like a model and with hardly a curve under the light green track suit that had seen better days. The face and tawny eyes - which he just managed to catch - were his as well, though she had averted them quickly and was looking to the floor, visibly nervous as she tugged the long tress of hair that hung forward over her shoulder and reached nearly to her waist.

Yuzuha motioned the girl to come over and Hikaru made another attempt to sit up, this time succeeding in getting vertical.

"Hello, Hikaru." The girl bowed her head and extended a hand, still holding on to her hair with the other as if it were a lifeline. "I'm Kaoru. How are you feeling?"

If she was nervous, the hand on her hair and her eyes were the only parts of her that showed it; her voice was definitely not his, but still sounded like that of a boy just waking up, and had something defenselessly, adolescently intimate about it. He clasped her hand, and almost wanted to take it in both of his to make assurance double-sure that she wasn't an apparition that would slip away. But Yuzuha was still holding on to his other hand rather firmly, and at the end of the day, it didn't matter. Kaoru was definitely real, and very warm - in fact, she seemed to radiate heat as the blood pumped through her fingertips.

"Kaoru…" He repeated, almost to himself, turning the word over with his tongue and struggling to connect the concept to reality. It was still almost too much to believe, and in another life he might have felt fragmented and robbed to suddenly learn that someone had been walking around with his face and - nearly - his body for the better part of fifteen years. But that was in another life. In this one, it suddenly felt like too many things had fallen into place.

"What's your favorite fragrance, Kaoru*?" he asked, looking up winsomely and hoping that the wordplay would break the ice and hide the fact that his heart was breaking in the best, most beautiful of ways.

_(*Kaoru means "fragrance.")_

"Uh… I don't know." He had succeeded - she cocked an eyebrow and looked up as she answered. "I've never really thought about it. Lavender, maybe?" Their eyes met for the first time after that fleeting moment after she stepped around the curtain but before she looked down, and Hikaru saw a shard of sadness flicker in her eyes even as she made a brave attempt to smile.

"So you're my sister…"

"It seems so, yes." The girl's smile grew a touch more genuine.

"My little sister." He toyed with her hand, turning it over and running the tips of his fingers down hers. He could not help thinking that he probably still looked like a child on Christmas who had seen Santa Claus, but found himself caring very little. "I've always wanted a little sister. Where have you been all these years, Kaoru? Why have you left me alone? You have no idea how much I suffered."

It seemed Hikaru was the clever, cheeky sort, and Kaoru could not help but feel a bit buoyed up by the sentiment. One of them, at the very least, would not need to rifle through pockets for something to say.

"How do you know I'm your little sister?" She looked across the bed at Yuzuha. "We don't know who came out first… Or do we?"

The woman had just finished wiping away a furtive tear, and her hand was clasping her husband's.

"No, you're right: we don't know that much," she affirmed.

"Well, the brother always protects his sister. Therefore, you're my little sister," Hikaru declared.

"I appreciate the sentiment," Kaoru replied, still smiling as her eyes softened, "But I don't think I need anyone to protect me." In a hospital bed, just awoken from a coma, and already raring to rescue someone - she thought. It was almost comical, though it made a part of her uncomfortably warm inside.

"Well, alright, Miss Independent" - Hikaru laughed - "But don't come crying to me when something bad happens."

Kaoru's smile faded.

"Oh… Oh, no… Kaoru, what's wrong? Did I say something I shouldn't have?…"

Kaoru said nothing.

"Hikaru," Yuzuha said finally, when it became clear that an answer was not forthcoming from Kaoru herself. "Kaoru's parents were in the same accident as you."

"Oh…"

"They didn't make it."

Hikaru pulled his hand away from his mother's and clasped Kaoru's in both of his. Kaoru's face was devoid of expression and she hid her eyes again. If she did not pull away, it seemed to be only because she'd been instantly drained of all life.

"Kaoru, I'm so… sorry." He desperately searched his mind for something less banal and less impotent to say, but the neurons, still sluggish from the contusion, misfired again and again. "Were they…?"

"No. They weren't." Kaoru's voice was wooden. "I was adopted too. But it doesn't matter."

She was right. It didn't. Hikaru let the hand, clasped in both of his, fall to the bedcovers. It all made sense now. Or rather, it was still bizarre that he had dreamed her up - accurately to a T - before he knew she existed, but she HAD been sad in the dream, and she was sad now, and it made perfect sense why. An electric shock shot down his spine again, as if every neuron that misfired before hit its mark at the same time. Suddenly, the colors of the lackluster picture on the wall grew shades more vibrant, and the tired green of Kaoru's hoodie reminded him of delicious _matcha_ flavored ice cream on a summer day.

"Kaoru… I'm really, really sorry," he repeated. "And I'm sorry for what I said… You can come to me any time." He picked up her hand again for emphasis, and had raised it halfway to his face before he caught himself. "I really want you to, okay?"

Please, Kaoru, he wanted to plead. Dear, sweet Kaoru - because she WAS sweet. She could not have been anything but. His sister might have had the angular figure of a man and she might have walked like a man, with none of the mincing, pigeon-toed cutesiness that girls liked to adopt, but there was something… soft about her. Something delicate and submissive in the way she kept lowering her eyes and let her hand rest in his. And the way her shoulders - otherwise stately like a queen's - slumped a little when he touched her. It made him want to pull her into the bed next to him and wrap his arms around her to hide her from the world, wires and IVs and the narrow space be damned.

All my life, I felt like I had no purpose. But now I want to spend every minute of every day trying to be the best brother in the world for you. And I'll be your mother and your father too, if that's what it takes. I'll be your anything, just to make you smile. He still held her hand, and the heart rate monitor had begun - traitorously - to echo the violence of his heartbeat, even as Kaoru showed no signs of answering.

The truth was, she could not have answered even if she wanted to. She felt… tired - more tired than she had ever been in her life, and even she had been surprised by how quickly it came on. The moment Yuzuha had begun to speak for her, Kaoru felt like she'd fallen backwards into an abyss. Her head had begun to hurt abruptly, a heaviness spread through her limbs, and she found she could barely keep her eyes open, much less put words to meaning.

Her last thought was that if she wasn't careful she would topple over backwards, but Yuzuke's hand on her shoulder came to the rescue.

"Son, I think Kaoru needs to get some rest. And so do you. You both had a long day."

"N-no…" Hikaru's eyes shot to his father with a pleading expression.

"Kaoru can come back tomorrow, and you can spend more time getting to know each other then."

"Your father's right, Hikaru," Yuzuha added from across the bed with smile, getting up to gently peel Kaoru's hand away from both of Hikaru's. "It's late, and I think we've all had enough excitement for one day. Kaoru - are you feeling okay?"

Hikaru watched helplessly as his parents spirited Kaoru away - it was only a few feet to the other side of the room to work out logistics, but it didn't matter. It still felt he'd been punched in the chest, and was adrift again on top of the dark ocean. He wanted to get up and stop them, to pull Kaoru back - even as she was, an effigy of herself clearly nodding off as she stood - but his limbs first refused to obey him, and then a sharp pain sent white sparks through his brain as he tried to swing his legs over the side of the bed.

"Hikaru!" His mother had materialized back at his side in a flash. "Hikaru, sweetie, calm down. Kaoru's not going far. Your dad's just going to take her to our house so she can get some sleep. She'll come back tomorrow. And I'll stay here with you so you don't have to be alone."

Hikaru settled back against the pillows. There was still a dull pulling in his chest, even as Yuzuha rubbed comforting circles into his chest and forearm, and even as his father and Kaoru came back to say goodnight. Kaoru's eyes were tired, and still a little sad, and it made Hikaru want to take her hand again. But Yuzuke was already conducting her away to the door - and as he did so, Hikaru had the distinct feeling that the colors of the world had followed her, draining from the forgettable watercolor, the walls, and his mother's suit one by one until they were all gone, and the world was as monochrome as could be.


	4. The House of Hitachiin

Kaoru opened her eyes, and as the feeling returned to her limbs her first thought was that a blizzard had come in the night and buried her in a snowdrift. Her body was folded into a bed with covers deeper and heavier than any she had felt before. Fatigue still clung to her body like cobwebs, and as she stretched out her limbs they did not reach to the ends of the mattress.

The second thing she noticed was the silence. At home, mornings had a standard soundtrack: quite apart from the fact that she usually woke to her mother screaming that breakfast was ready, there was also the spirited choir of birds outside her window, the barking of neighborhood dogs, and the hum of the freeway that she'd conditioned herself to think was the ocean. If Kaoru woke up later on a weekend, she'd hear young schoolchildren playing in the street - or a lawnmower, or gossiping housewives, or someone watching the news with the window open. In short, there was always something to reassure her that the world - however boring it might have seemed at times - was already busy winding its spring by the time she opened her eyes. Yet now there was nothing but silence, as if someone had clicked off the TV and severed all the cables.

Where was she, anyway? At home, the window was steps away from her bed and faced east, so every morning she woke in a flood of sunshine. But not today - today, the window was a good twenty feet away, the drapes almost completely shut and admitting only a tiny sliver of daylight. The walls, done up in muted green wallpaper, did not look familiar, and the ceiling was higher than any she had seen before, making the room seem even more cavernous. She raked her brain, and was quick to regret it: as the previous night's events began to take shape, she wanted nothing more than to burrow under the covers and sleep forever.

In fact, she was about to do just that when she heard a knock on the door.

"Yes? Come in," Kaoru mumbled, sitting up with a groan.

The door opened to reveal a young woman with comely features, two large ponytails, and wearing a getup so odd it made Kaoru momentarily forget her determination to fall asleep forever. If she didn't know better, she would have wondered if the woman was cosplaying as a maid for the purposes of some schlocky period drama - or a hentai.

"Good morning, Miss Suzumiya," the woman said with a bow and a brilliant smile that may have worked equally well for a model presenting wares in a showroom. "I'm Toroko, and I'll be your maid while you're staying here. Is there anything I can help you with this morning?"

"Uhh…"

So, ridiculous as her choice of clothing was, she wasn't cosplaying - she really was a maid. Kaoru let herself sink a little into the oversized, downy mattress. It made sense - if these Hitachiins were the same family that ran the successful luxury clothing brand, they would certainly be able to afford servants. But she never would have guessed that a real maid's outfit would look quite so much like something out of a costume shop, complete with flared skirt and ruffled suspenders that ended with tiny wings over the shoulders? And the idea of having a personal assistant made her feel almost ashamed of herself. After all, what kinds of things were maids supposed to do, exactly?

"Would you like breakfast? Or coffee? I can also draw you a bath and bring you some clothes to change into, if you feel so inclined," Toroko volunteered smilingly, ever the trade-show hostess listing the features of a new state-of-the-art washing machine.

"Breakfast sounds good."

"Good, what would you like?" Toroko's voice grew more chipper still - which Kaoru had not thought was possible.

"Uh… toast?" Ever since age five, Kaoru's favorite breakfast food, embarrassingly enough, was toasted _shokupan_: the white, processed sandwich bread ubiquitous to every supermarket and convenient store - though that did not make it taste any less like the food of angels. If she had to stay awake, she thought, a slice of shokupan with butter and jam might be just the thing to help her feel like the world had not ended.

"Will that be French toast or regular? And would you like french bread, whole wheat, rye, pumpernickel, ciabatta, or seven-grain?"

Kaoru's mouth fell open. She had never even heard of seven-grain bread. Come to think of it, she could barely list seven varieties of grain.

"Do you have… shokupan?"

"I'm sorry, we don't." - Toroko's winning attitude sank a notch, but only for a moment. "We can get some, though."

They didn't have... shokupan? Oh well, figures - Kaoru thought. Shokupan was a budget item after all.

"Would you like jam with that? We've got apple, lingonberry, blueberry, blackberry, raspberry, strawberry, boysenberry, mulberry, gooseberry, cranberry, mandarin orange, concord grape, muscat grape, rhubarb, cherry, litchi, papaya, guava, mango-"

What was this woman - a walking, talking menu? Kaoru found herself wondering how much Toroko had been paid to memorize what seemed like the entire contents of the Hitachiins' apparently vast pantry. And… Boysenberry?

"Boysenberry," Kaoru replied, suddenly feeling like she wouldn't mind discovering America that day.

Toroko smiled indulgently, as if to indicate that her mistress-in-training was progressing well.

"Butter with that?"

"Yes, please." And please , God, don't let her ask me if I want it pre-spread on my toast.

"And would you care for tea or coffee? We've got oolong, black, green, white, red for tea, and for coffee we've got orange and yellow Bourbon, pacas, blue mountain, catuai, french mission, java-"

"Toroko - " Kaoru interrupted the maid with her best attempt at a nonchalant smile given the circumstances. "Do I look like someone who knows what all of those are?"

The young woman paused, hesitating, her professional demeanor clearly at odds with her desire to volunteer a truthful - if not quite on-topic opinion of what she thought Kaoru looked like.

"Just… Get me whatever Hikaru likes."

"Very well, Miss Suzumiya."

Toroko gave a small bow. The name of the elephant in the room had somehow managed to diffuse the situation: including that of Kaoru's source of caffeine for the day.

"Will you be having that in bed, at the table" - the maid gestured to a table by the window - "Or downstairs in the morning room?"

Kaoru was silent for a moment. It was still heartbreakingly hard to believe that instead of her mother shouting at the top of her lungs that it was time to get going, she had woken up to find THIS crazy creature. More than that - that she might never hear her mother shouting anything at all, ever again. Unless - unless it had all been a dream, and she was still dreaming and had made it all up: the maid Toroko and her improbable costume, the cavernous room, Yuzuha and Yuzuke, and even Hikaru last night, who had looked as happy as a child on Christmas morning to meet her, and so stricken when she was taken away. Yes, her sleeping mind probably HAD made it all up, because no self-respecting orphanage would separate twins, would it? And she would wake up soon, tell her parents about it over breakfast, and the three of them would have a good laugh about it.

"Downstairs," Kaoru said emphatically.

After all, whether or not this was a dream, her father would not want her to be a lazybones.

…

Kaoru sat in the morning room, a verandah with three walls comprised entirely of French windows that opened up to the garden. She had gotten out of bed, sure enough, charged with determination to view it all as a dream until further notice. But as she followed the maid downstairs she felt like she was sinking deeper into a bog, her limbs growing heavier and heavier. Any minute now, the lights would fade and the thick, the dark waters would close over her head, and she would come to lie with the dinosaurs, her body sending slow bubbles to the surface until the millenia turned her into a lump of coal. By the time she had made it to breakfast, she had hardly enough energy to keep herself from slumping over, and was staring dejectedly out the window.

The Hitachiins had a real garden - nothing like the plot of land a hundred feet square where she and her father would plant vegetables in the spring, even as mother acted the benevolent yet strict foreman. Here, there were rose bushes as tall as people, and a few wrought-iron benches, and paths that wound around the flowerbeds. The sound of a pair of clippers - an invisible gardener trimming the verge - floated into room, but otherwise the house was as silent as ever. Kaoru wondered detachedly where the Hitachiins lived exactly, that they had access to enough space and sound isolation to make being home feel like you'd fallen off the face of the earth.

In fact, even Toroko - when she was not asking how she could be of assistance and reeling off long lists with a doll-faced smile - was silent as a ghost, and never spoke unless spoken to. The maid had just brewed some tea in a cast-iron pot and poured it into a cup so delicate Kaoru was afraid to touch it. She had then stepped back without a word and folded folded her hands, evidently awaiting further instructions. It was almost enough to drive Kaoru distracted.

It still didn't compute - her mind nagged against the backdrop of deafening silence. How she, Kaoru, had gotten there. How there were too many things to name would never happen again. And how quickly the future had become a blank slate in a gray, morose sort of way, and how she would soon have to make decisions whose import she might not comprehend for many weeks and months. Kaoru suddenly found herself feeling so sorry for herself it was difficult to breathe.

"Toroko?" Kaoru made a willful effort to straighten up - it was either that, or give up on everything and everyone and fall face-first into her teacup. "Where are we, exactly? I mean, what part of Tokyo?" At least - she assumed it was Tokyo. She had fallen asleep in the car the night before.

"Shirokanedai district, Minato ward," the maid answered without skipping a beat.

Karou was a touch surprised. She knew Shirokanedai as the home of a famous strip of boutiques called Platinum Street, and she knew it was a place where many rich people had villas, but to the best of her knowledge it really wasn't that FAR from everything. How on earth was it so quiet?

"And what's supposed to happen today?"

"Mrs. Hitachiin will come back in the late afternoon and the two of you will visit Mr. Hikaru in the hospital. That is, unless you want to take a car and see him yourself. I can also give you a tour of the house and grounds, if you like."

Kaoru looked down at her plate, rimmed in deep blue and silver, and suddenly had no appetite for shokupan. Hospitals? Cars? A part of her was almost positive she never wanted to see a hospital or a car ever again. And Hikaru? It was hard to say no to seeing someone who had been as keen as a Golden Retriever to meet her, but in a hospital room? Like the one where her parents had been, bruised and covered in sheets, and with dirt washed away hastily from their faces? She would probably end up going with Yuzuha later whether she liked it or not, but for the time being some things were better left buried.

Kaoru got up and pushed the plate away from her.

"Why don't you show me around, Toroko?" she said. "I'm really sorry you had to go to all the trouble, but I'm not hungry anymore."

…

The house was indeed a villa, and the nearest thing she could compare it to was a Beverly Hills mansion in a Hollywood movie. The first floor had to have had at least twelve rooms that seemed to have no specific purpose except to "entertain," and to store various curiosities that Yuzuha and Yuzuke had collected over the course of their travels - from medieval Belgian tapestries to Chinese turtle dragons, which seemed to be Yuzuha's favorite. The maze of rooms all converged on an airy sitting-room that spanned two stories, with lamps hanging on wires so thin they looked like they were floating, and furniture so white Kaoru wondered why another bothered. A corner of the room was devoted entirely to a small forest of bamboo with soft stools for reflection, and one wall made almost entirely of glass, opening up into yet another "garden" - this one complete with a pool, a lawn, and a skyline beyond that looked like a theatre backdrop.

When they stepped outside, Kaoru looked at her reflection in the water and saw an airplane traverse the sky past her head - but it, too, was eerily quiet. It was a brilliantly warm day in March, with shards of sunshine dancing atop the water - a bright, incongruous sort of blue seen in travel brochures and children's watercolors.

"And over there, we've got tennis courts, a basketball court, and a croquet lawn," Toroko was saying, having transformed into a hybrid of a real estate agent and a museum tourguide.

"You guys… have a basketball court?"

"Most certainly."

Toroko conducted her down a path and sure enough, there it was, past the tennis court and netted off from the rest of the lawn. Not just a plot of concrete with a wire hoop like so many playgrounds and schools had, and as far a cry from a hoop affixed over a driveway as Kaoru could imagine. Rather, the concrete had hardly any wear, and the lines were crisp, a perfect mini version of a real thing. And there were two baskets, not just one, perfect for a game of three on three - or even more. It was the first thing that, over the last twenty-four hours, had truly taken her breath away in a good way, and Kaoru stood looking at it until the sun began to bake on the bridge of her nose and on her cheeks.

"Does somebody… play?" she asked breathlessly, almost afraid to guess what other bizarre coincidences her acquaintance with Hikaru would bring her face to face with.

"No, not anymore. Mr. Hikaru had a phase, and he had some friends who enjoyed it, but it's been a few years."

"What other… phases had Hikaru had?"

"Oh, in the time I've been here, you name it, he's tried it," Toroko let her tone grow a touch a touch affectionate, making Kaoru wonder if the maid might have had a the secret fondness for Hikaru not unlike that of a big sister. After all, Toroko could not have been much older than twenty.

"Baseball, dressage, volleyball, you name it," the maid continued. "He wasn't half-bad at many of them either - he even won a few regional championships in golf. But it seemed like he was always searching for the next thing."

She paused, pressing her lips, and looking down, as if suddenly wondering if she'd said too much for her station.

...

Kaoru was not sure why, but Toroko's coming alive when asked directly about Hikaru had made a sick feeling not unlike vertigo rise in her stomach. She dismissed the maid and set to wandering the upper floors of the house by herself, pondering the day's events.

The Hitachiins - and the bits and pieces she had seen of their life - were for the moment a topic far less painful than cars and hospitals. But here, too, there were many unanswered questions that made her feel queasy. For instance, if Hikaru had a lot of phases, could it be that the idea of a little sister, which he had taken to so much, would also prove to be a phase, and he would discard her as he did the basketball court when he discovered they had nothing to truly tie them together? What if Yuzuha and Yuzuke, too, were given to "phases"? The very rich seemed to be an entirely different animal, if their houses were any indication. In fact, they seemed hardly real, given how quickly they could make things happen: how quickly Yuzuha had been able to find out everything about Kaoru from her lawyer, and how quickly Toroko had gotten her hands on convenient store bread even though there was none in the pantry. Kaoru still found it hard to trust them, even though they had treated her as one of their own.

She paused in front of a door that was half-open, but the glimpse of a guitar and a teenage mess strewn across the carpet drew her in almost in spite of herself.

It was Hikaru's room. She did not even need the large framed calligraphy piece on the wall featuring his name to tell her that. From the threshold, it was not unlike the one she had slept in - in fact, it was almost identical, except far more full of… all kinds of things. The wall opposite the bed was filled with a big-screen TV and a video game console; the walls were covered with shelves. Some were full of books, DVDs and games; others were filled photographs and memorabilia under glass. And Toroko had not lied, either - every inch of the room was a testament to just what she said: that Hikaru seemed to have tried everything once. In addition to the guitar, there was also a trombone, a cello in a case, board games and strategy games of every breed, and even a marble chess table with wrought wooden legs. There was also a low table devoted entirely to a veritable Noah's Ark of origami animals, an entire shelf of frog figurines, a corner devoted to model airplanes and U-boats, three baseball mitts stuffed into various cracks, a cricket bat in a corner, kendo gear, a basketball, stray shin guards for soccer, and a bag of golf clubs looking very forlorn under the bed. And it seemed like the last time he had been home, Hikaru had left his room in a big hurry and had thrown cosplay clothes all over the floor.

But far more interesting was the wall of shelves filled with photographs, framed and under glass alongside various mementos. Her feet carried her over to look more closely on their own accord, even though she knew all too well how wrong it was for her to be there. After all, the room's owner had met her for all of ten minutes, and was recovering in a hospital after a close brush with death. And yet…

For a fifteen year old, Hikaru was certainly well-traveled. He seemed to have gone to see the Great Wall of China when he was around two, and was standing between his parents on it, waving. He had also been to France on an elementary school trip - Kaoru's eyes widened when she realized this - and also to Macchu Picchu, to the Grand Canyon, to the fairytale castle in Germany, and to what looked like Disney World - the one in the States, not Tokyo Disney. And Toroko had not been lying about his success in sports, either: there was Hikaru in a helmet and boots next to a chestnut horse, smiling and displaying the ribbon that lay a few inches away from the photograph. In another one, he looked entirely too much the newsie as he held a golf club and posed with a trophy. But both awards - along with what Kaoru realized were karate belts, ending in blue - had simply been tossed into the cabinet, and had grown dusty. And then there were the typical pictures that everyone had: school entrance ceremonies, graduations, birthdays, and group shots with friends, where everyone flashed the peace sign and seemed happy - even if it was the same sort of conveyor-belt happiness she had seen in Hikaru's Facebook (™) photo.

It was odd to say the least, at first, to be looking at "herself" in all those contexts. But in truth, it could have been anyone in those pictures, so far removed they seemed from any kind of reality. The travel pictures especially looked like Hikaru might have been posing against a photo studio backdrop, so similar was pasted-on smile from one to the next. A part of her marveled how he had managed to get that much done - and that same part of her wanted to resent him for hardly appreciating the opportunities he had been given. In the picture in front of the Nortre Dame, for instance, he looked like he did not even want to be there. And she wanted to resent him, too, for doing things other sacrificed everything for in a perfunctory manner, or because it was the flavor of the month. For not even caring if he was any good at them, and for not even caring to put them properly away when his "phase" with them ended.

But then again, something did not add up here, either. She simply refused to believe that the Hikaru of the night before was the same one who smiled dutifully in those pictures. The Hikaru she had met had looked so young, and so unadulteratedly blissful, like a child who had seen a fairy long after he gave up believing in them. She did not think it was possible that he would grow cold, or forget - especially since she wasn't a board game or a horse but a person. And who knew, maybe happiness was not about what opportunities you had or didn't. If something was off, something was off. After all, she too had had a reasonably good life, and yet there were still many days when she felt nearly as bad as that morning, and wanted nothing more than to roll around on the floor crying and listening to sad music.

She squeezed the hand Hikaru had held, and suddenly felt even more wrong standing there. Why did she need to try and twist a confession out of a series of pictures under glass when she would see him in person so soon? They still plenty of time, assuming… But then again, two days ago she had thought the same about her parents.

Kaoru quickly reigned in her thoughts, turned around briskly and had started to walk away when she ran smack into Yuzuha on the doorstep.

"I'm… sorry," she whispered, gasping and backing away a few paces, her foot getting tangled in a wizard's cloak. "I… shouldn't be here. I'm really sorry, I just -"

There she was, feeling like she was rifling through someone's underwear drawer when that someone's mother had to go and catch her in the act. Kaoru ardently wished she could become very, very small at will - or disappear altogether.

Yuzuha cast an up and down look at the girl, from the disheveled crown of her hair to her feet in borrowed slippers.

"Honey, we need to get you something else to wear," she said. "Your clothes look a little… lived in."

...

Two hours later, Kaoru was wearing a light, dusty-purple pleated skirt, a green cardigan, and leather boat shoes as she trotted behind Yuzuha down the halls of the hospital. One perk of staying with a fashion designer was that she had a mini studio in her home, and all manner of zero-sized clothing samples, most of which probably cost half of Kaoru's father weekly salary when he was living. Her hair had been brushed into a side-ponytail that she had draped over her chest, and she toyed with it the ends to stave off the jitters. Yuzuha looked very satisfied with herself as she bore a tasteful bouquet of Azaleas - symbolizing family devotion - like an award she had won for mother of the year. She had also placed a decorative lacquer box in Kaoru's hands, filled with get well cards that had already accumulated at the Hitachiin house.

Hikaru was sitting up playing a game on a handheld console, and looked up as they entered the room, the Christmas morning smile spreading over his lips again.

"How are you, love?" said Yuzuha, leaning over to kiss both of his cheeks, the bouquet still in her hands.

"Better. Still a little dizzy when I try to go anywhere. So they told me - if you get up and get dizzy, sit back down. And I was like, no, DUH." He chuckled as she drew away to put the flowers in water. "Kaoru!" he exclaimed, stretching his hands out in his sister's direction.

The girl had been hanging back, clutching the lacquered box in both hands and nearly as shy as the previous day. She had not been able to bring herself to look him in the eye when she had been snooping in his room only a few hours ago, safe though that secret might have been with Yuzuha.

"Kaoru, you look positively lovely, but you've been gone for sixteen hours! That's inexcusable!" he proclaimed with a comically put-upon expression that she was almost sure masked genuine emotion. "First it takes me fifteen years to find you, then we talk for five minutes, and then you disappear again! I was so worried. Did you get a good night's sleep, at least? Was the staff nice to you?"

The girl approached slowly and placed the box on Hikaru's bedside table.

"These are… for you. Letters and stuff."

"I'll read them later, thank you." He pawed for her hand and took it in his before she knew what was happening. "I want to hear about YOU right now." He glanced at his mother, as if asking her permission to eschew talking to her in favor of his sister. Yuzuha smiled a delicate Noh-mask smile that seemed to slip into her eyes, nodded, and settled across the room, plunging into her Ipad.

"Me?" A slight blush cast a glow over Kaoru's cheeks as she observed the pantomime between mother and son. "There's not much to say about me."

"No way. I'm sure there's plenty. Tell me about -"

He paused. What DID he want to know about her? All night, the image of her had not left his head. He had never met anyone whose parents had died, and he had never interacted with a commoner to any significant degree. And there she was, a two-for-one. He had a million questions, but in the end they all boiled down to the same thing: "What is it like to… BE you? Can I shadow you for a day? Can I live under your skin?" But you couldn't just ask someone something like that.

A very obvious first thing to ask someone was about their family and where they came from. But with Kaoru, he assumed, those were potentially triggering topics. And besides, Yuzuha had already given him all the facts. She had found out everything: where Kaoru had lived, and where she had gone to school (startlingly, her school was called Ouran Public). Yuzuha also knew what Kaoru's parents did for a living: her father was a mid-level executive at a real estate firm and her mother had gone back to work part-time as a kindergarten teacher when Kaoru started middle school. She had even gone so far as to rustle up Kaoru's disciplinary record, and as a result Hikaru knew that his sister was a bit of a tearaway. Which didn't make sense - not when Yuzuha had told him that Kaoru had been nothing but polite, and not when she looked the way she did. Her face had none of the me-against-the-world sullenness of the typical juvenile delinquent, and dressed so primly and properly, her back elegant and straight and her hands folded in her lap, she looked far more the princess than any girl at Ouran. In fact, he had almost had to bite his tongue to keep himself from calling her just that when she had come in.

"Tell me about what you like to do," he said finally. "I mean, when school is done and such."

"Oh. Well… It depends on the day." Kaoru smiled a bit and raised her eyes, and Hikaru's heart fluttered triumphantly.

"Okay, so what did you do last Tuesday, for instance?"

Kaoru looked up at the ceiling and thought back. Last week - or anything beyond yesterday - felt like it had happened to someone else.

"I had pre-season basketball training," she said, remembering that last Tuesday had been one of Those Days - a day she felt sad for no reason. "After that, I didn't have anywhere to be, and I was bored, so I took the train and listened to a Lilly Allen CD on repeat. I went all the way to Shin-Takashimadaira. It took two and a half hours, but that was because I rode around the circle line twice first, trying to make up my mind."

"Shin-Takashimadaira? Why?"

Hikaru smiled with half his mouth in a poor attempt to disguise his bemusement. Either Kaoru was very strange, or he knew less about the habits of commoners than he had thought.

"I don't know. I just pointed at random on a subway map and decided that it would be a good day to go there. I've been doing that for fun ever since I was little. It's a nice way to be alone and clear your head, but you never know who and what you might run into."

"Your parents… LET you go places unaccompanied?" Hikaru could not help but shoot a horrified look at Yuzuha, but she was far too absorbed in her work to notice.

"Oh, sure," replied Kaoru - miraculously failing to wince at the mention of her parents, and Hikaru released the breath he'd been holding ever since he'd blurted out the ill-advised words. "It's not like there's a lot of crime in the city."

O…kay. That was certainly not what had been pounded into Hikaru's head from day one.

"I… See," he said slowly. "So what's in Shin-Takashimadaira?"

"Not a whole lot. A weird-looking fountain that you see when you come right out of the station: it looks like rainclouds on stakes. Shops, too, and some new apartment buildings. There was one thing that sort of cheered me up, though. There's a nail polish store that seems to sell every nail polish ever made. It has music blasting like it's a disco or an arcade or something - even in the middle of the day. And it's run by a funny little old man who probably shops for clothes in the children's department. All he does is walk around and say '_Konichiwaaaaaa*_.' Not even '_Irashaimasse_*.' Konichiwa. And not even to customers - just randomly. Like, he said it to the wall a couple times. And it seems like his goal was to drag out each 'a' for at least a minute."

_(Konichiwa is "hello" and is on the informal side; Irashaimasse is the standard expression among business-owners that means "welcome to our shop.")_

Kaoru had started to come alive as she conjured up images of the nail polish store with a faraway look in her eyes, and Hikaru marveled at how little it took to make one emotion rush to replace the next on her face. A nail polish shop with a funny proprietor in a no-name, far-flung ward of Tokyo? She was a fascinating creature and no mistake. He wondered how much more colorful the same life might have been if he spent fifteen years looking at it through her eyes.

"I don't really wear nail polish, myself," Kaoru added, looking critically at her hand, which was still in Hikaru's, and splaying her fingers. "But it was almost enough to make me think about trying. There were so many colors, I could have worn a different one every day for the rest of my life."

She didn't wear nail polish? Hikaru cast a furtive look down, and, sure enough, even their hands were nearly indistinguishable - it didn't seem like Kaoru's had seen much more than a nail clipper in recent memory. And she was an athlete - which might have explained her less-than-dainty, almost tomboyish stance and manner of walking. But her hair was among the longest and shiniest he had ever seen, even among the high-maintenance heiresses of Ouran - a pain to pin out of the way every time she played, probably, so she really ought to have cared about it to go through all the trouble. What sort of juvenile delinquent-slash-tomboy was she, anyway? Unless she was in a Yankee motorcycle gang - those girls had long hair, and were fierce in a less-than-feminine way. But then again, he had never seen a Yankee except in movies, and he could not imagine Kaoru would be one: she seemed like a creature of contradictions, but not an extremist.

"So you don't like to stick to just one image," he ventured.

"How did you guess?" She chuckled softly, cocking her head.

"Well, you like to pick something at random and go with it. But you also seem to like to have options."

"You're right."

"What do you like about it?"

Hikaru caught himself thinking that Kaoru would like Tamaki if she ever met him. Half of Tamaki's madcap schemes were so random, you wondered whether his mind was a room-full of monkeys with dart boards, and all he did was connect the dots.

"Well," she said, her eyes still fixed on her splayed-out fingers. "I guess I've always liked to inject bits of chaos into my life because I've always been waiting for something to happen that would change everything. And when I got bored of waiting, I'd try to make it happen on my own."

Hikaru felt his heart skip a beat. So there was method to her madness after all and she, too, had been searching for something that had no name. Suddenly, holding hands did not feel like nearly enough.

Kaoru looked up from examining her hand and their eyes met.

"Kaoru, you've got beautiful hair," Hikaru suddenly found himself saying. "How long did it take to grow out?"

"All my life, pretty much." If she was made uncomfortable by the attention suddenly paid to her appearance, she did not show it; she was still wearing the same faraway, doe-eyed expression.

"Doesn't it get in the way when you play sports?"

"No. I do crown braids around my head. I figure - the shorter your hair, the fewer options you've got in the long-term."

"Can I - touch it?"

What was he SAYING? Hikaru nearly chocked on the words as they formed in his throat. Girls did not like their hair touched, and now his sister was probably going to think he was some sort of pervert…

But no… Kaoru looked confused by the request, but only for a moment. She nodded, and he reached out breathlessly for the base of the long ponytail that hung over her chest. As she turned to give him easier access, the sunlight slanting through the window skidded across the crown of her head, painting it a reddish-gold. He ran his fingers through the strands, thick and strong yet soft as silk, and suddenly had the image of holding Kaoru in his arms, alone at home, listening to the summer rain pound against the roof.

"Hikaru!" - his mother's voice cut its way into his consciousness, tinged with a note of what - with Yuzuha - passed for severe. "I don't like you touching Kaoru's hair that way."

Hikaru looked up to find his mother had gotten up from her seat, the work on her tablet quite abandoned. He let his hands fall to his lap, and felt a nearly physical twinge of pain. Kaoru pulled back and looked up at the women.

"It's okay, Mrs. Hitachiin," she said quietly. "Really. It's just hair."


	5. The Basketball Court

Over the course of the next few days, Kaoru fell into something of a routine. In the mornings, she would pull herself out of bed and drag herself cheerlessly to the bathroom. Next, she would consume a plate of toasted _shotupan_ prepared by Toroko. And then, invariably, she would dress in one of the outfits picked out by Yuzuha - usually a sweater and a skirt - and set off on foot to Shirokanedai station, where she would catch the subway to the hospital in time for visiting hours. It was still hard to fall asleep at night because of the silence, and it was still hard to wake in the morning on account of the bed being too far away from the window, but if not for the daily trip she might have given up altogether, and stayed up all night shooting hoops only to sleep through the day - all the to better to ignore condolence calls from relatives and friends she did not want to talk to. Visiting hours, at least, gave her some sort of a structure. And while Yuzuha had been skeptical about letting her go alone on the subway, Kaoru pleaded a fear of cars and not wanting to be a bother to anybody, and in the end had gotten her way, in all probability because Yuzuha had decided that arguing with the bereaved would not win her many points in the afterlife.

Kaoru had in fact developed a slight fear of cars after her first ride with Yuzuha in a dark company Volvo, which she guessed was not unlike the one Hikaru had been in when he'd suffered the crash. Nor did it help when she learned that the chauffeur was replacing a colleague who had narrowly escaped the accident with two broken arms and was home recovering. But more than that, the daily ride on the subway became a lifeline in and of itself. The older Hitachiins were always gone for the better part of the day - which was to be expected: both seemed to be important, in-demand people. But Kaoru still felt forgotten and lost, and to escape, she took the train. In her old life, the subway had always drawn her in when she was sad - a hub of randomness, abuzz with potential. To a degree, it felt that way still, but it was also one of the few things that had remained a constant between her old life and her new one.

The other silver lining to her days, of course, was that Hikaru was remarkably easy to be with. He always greeted her with a smile, and it took him no time at all to start acting as if they had known each other forever. With him, there were no elephants in the room, no tiptoeing around things, and no feeling like she was made of glass, about to break at any moment. Only you, me, and us - and no moment but the present. It did not even matter that Kaoru still felt half-alive. Though still a trifle bed-bound, Hikaru was more than alive enough for both of them.

When Kaoru came in for the first time by herself, Hikaru had been immersed in _The Sun Also Rises_ by Ernest Hemingway, which was required vacation reading for incoming freshmen at Ouran Academy. Hikaru seemed excited for high school, having changed his Facebook (™) affiliation ahead of time, and put up a profile picture showing off his new uniform. But Kaoru was quick to learn that some parts of school enthused him more than others.

"You know," Hikaru declared, as if his sister had gone out for a coffee and was gone no more than five minutes. "I liked _A Movable Feast_, but this is ridiculous. Even Hemingway seems to have had a few misfires."

"Oh?" Kaoru sat down on the chair by the head of the bed, trying to infuse her voice with the energy she wanted to feel.

"I swear, it's a book about nothing. They wake up and decide, let's go to this place. And then they go there, and they drink. And then they do it again, and there's this one guy who keeps getting made fun of for being Jewish. And that's seriously all the book is."

"Really? I've never read it."

"Well, here, let me read it to you…"

And before long, they were both nose-deep into the novel as they took turns reading - complete with voices for each of the characters and smart-aleck remarks aimed below the narrator's belt. Hikaru seemed to really enjoy making ferocious fun of the book's laconic style - which in his mind resembled chopping wood and driving metal stakes into the ground.

"You know, Kaoru, this is fun," Hikaru had finally said, after recovering from his fifteenth paroxysm of laughter that hour. "You ought to come live with us, and go to Ouran with me. We can do homework together, and it'll be so much easier that way. We can also sit together in class to make the day go faster. I think the secret to getting through a boring school day is having someone to pass notes with. Last year I was stuck sitting next to the student council representative. You can imagine how THAT went."

But Kaoru had lowered her eyes - and that was all it took for Hikaru to sense she was not ready to go there. He changed the subject so quickly and so deftly, she was surprised just how naturally she ended up going with the flow.

On another occasion, Hikaru was sitting cross-legged on the bed with a box of assorted sweets in front of him, and had declaimed to the tune of Forrest Gump as he took a large bite out of a chocolate turtle: "Life is like-a box-a chocolates, Kow-roo - you never know whacha gonna get!"

"What are you talking about, Hikaru?" Kaoru had chuckled despite having had a particularly bad time of scraping herself out of bed that morning. "I mean, you MAY be right, but it's certainly not THIS box of chocolates. It says what the flavors are - right on the box. It even says WHERE they are." She pointed to the scheme of the lid that indicated the arrangement of the "mystery" flavors.

"Right, but what if you can't read? Then you're screwed!" He took a delicate nibble of a sweet - this one apparently filled with strawberry nougat.

"Then… I don't know," replied Kaoru. "You might have to rely on pattern recognition. In time you'd realize there's only a finite number of flavors, and that they keep arranging them in the same way. I mean, they have to: it would cost too much to print different layout schemes every time." She could not help but keep smiling, debating whether she ought to tell him that she had given the question a great deal of thought when she was a little tyke of ten, and had reached the disappointing conclusions she had just outlined.

"Tisk-tisk-tisk," Hikaru shook his head. "This coming from the girl who seems to love randomness so much she rides the subway waiting for a woman with a cat on her head to come into the car and change the course of the universe?" He motioned for her to open her mouth and made a show of pretending that the truffle he was holding was an airplane coming in for a landing. "I mean, what if there's an accident at the factory? You gotta live a little and at least admit the possibility."

And then there was the time he greeted her with a conspiratorial look and told her that a friend had gone to the south of France and sent him a bottle of lavender-flavored syrup which you were supposed to mix with sparkling water, and which he had been saving just for her. The lavender syrup ended up tasting like soap suds, and they had a good laugh about it, agreeing that certain fragrances were better left in the bathtub. But it was a long time before Kaoru could banish from her head the sight of the delicate, practiced turn of Hikaru's wrist as he poured the water. And it did not help matters when her insisted she walk arm in arm with him down the hall during his physical therapy session. In fact, Hikaru seemed to have a penchant to physically invading other people's space to various ends, and had gotten it into his head that his daily turn around the trauma wing was the perfect chance to show Kaoru off to everyone he met.

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Kuriyama," Hikaru had said, casting an exaggerated bow to an old lady they bumped into - so exaggerated, in fact, that both Kaoru and the physical therapist had to catch his arms to keep him from toppling over in his less-than-coordinated state. "How are you this fine day?"

"Good, Hikaru, very good - thank you for asking. With any luck I'll be out of here by summer." The old lady had smiled with all the solemn dignity of her eighty-plus years.

"Allow me to introduce my baby sister," Hikaru gestured at Kaoru. "So she's only three days old. She must have gotten lost in the mail - because three days ago is when mom finally delivered her! Isn't she cute?!" He pinched Kaoru's cheeks and puckered his lips at her, making Kaoru blush fifty shades of crimson.

"Hikaru… Please," she whispered. "You're embarrassing me… In front of everyone..."

"Yo, Hitachiin, are you sure that's a sister?" called a teenage boy, who was apparently Hikaru's next-door neighbor, and had been making his way back from the lounge laden with snacks. "Looks more like a brother dressed in bad drag."

Hikaru pulled Kaoru closer and glared at the boy. "I have it on good authority that my sister," he proclaimed, "Is not only a sister but a lady of very superior charm and beauty. And if you say anything else about her, I'll send you back to the ICU, you got me?"

Kaoru was about to whisper another strangled protestation - but Hikaru flashed her a smile so brilliantly mischievous, she found herself regrouping faster than she'd thought possible as the blood rushed from her face to her head. She cast a conciliatory yet significant look at those present.

"Don't mind my brother." She lowered her voice with a smile. "He's had a little too much… morphine. Come on, Hikaru" - she pulled his arm - "I think it's time for your - uh - water closet."

But it never lasted. A nurse would always poke her head in and inform Hikaru that he had another visitor. Sometimes, it would be Yuzuha or Yuzuke, who were still very kind, and always had a present for one both of them - or some uplifting news. But the fun would still be over, as the twins were more on their guard when the parents were around ever since Hikaru got in trouble for touching Kaoru's hair. At other times, Hikaru would be told that his friends had come to visit, at which point Kaoru would conveniently remember she had something to do and hasten out. When it came down to it, she simply did not feel ready to make a more official entrance into his world. And Hikaru seemed to understand that, and never pressured her to stay.

As Kaoru hurried away from the hospital, she always caught herself wondering if it was right to let her days revolve around one person. That was the stuff of bad relationships, she would say to herself, and codependency, and all sorts of objectionable things. Sure, the feeling she had when she first saw Hikaru was no illusion; with him things always felt so… RIGHT, and there was no need to pretend, or posture, or think too much. She had even begun to smile more. But was that… enough? And how much of it was simply the natural tendency to grab onto the first plank that floated your way amid a shipwreck?

To avoid pondering the question too much, when Kaoru returned to at the Hitachiin house she would spend much of her time on the mini basketball court, doing solo drills. Something about being all body was soothing, and invariably knocked the neurosis out of her head for a while. When she got tired, she would sit down, pull the knees up to her chin, and stare at the skyline. The sun would sink behind the jagged row of skyscrapers, and then everything would turn blue as a Picasso painting, and the stars would come out. The Hitachiins lived in the city, but the same preponderance of green, open space that made Shirokanedai so quiet also managed to diffuse the light pollution a bit, and the stars were far brighter than any she had seen before.

In fact, one time Kaoru realized that if she looked straight up, it was almost too easy to fool herself into believing she was somewhere very far away, like the desert or the savannah. She imagined billowing waves of grass all around her, and something about the image - its undefined vastness - made her feel better.

Are you there, mom and dad? - she asked the sky.

When she was young, she liked the idea in _The Lion King_ that the stars were the eyes of the dead, looking down on the world. And the image of Mufasa's ghost walking out of the clouds to tragic yet uplifting music had always stuck with her, and made shivers run down her spine and tears rise in her throat.

If life were simple - Kaoru thought, as she lay back against the concrete, balancing the ball on her stomach - then that's what would happen right now. Eiji and Sayoko Suzumiya would come out of the clouds that had obscured the moon, and would look just as tragic and majestic as Mufasa -

But what would they tell her? What did she want to HEAR?

Unlike Simba, she had not forgotten who she was - at least she didn't think she had. And she would not forget them, either, for the example they had set in working hard, living a life of virtue, and being grateful for every day was something she could only hope she would one day emulate. No, perhaps she was the one who would do the talking, and who would run after them - even if she knew it was futile - and tell them that she was so, so sorry that it had turned out that way.

She closed her eyes to the sky - from which she knew no miracle would be forthcoming - and turned to her side, still hugging the ball against her stomach.

...

"Kaoru?… Kaoru?!… Kaoru!"

She tried to ignore her name being called the first time around, having decided she felt bad enough to try and fall asleep right then and there, but the second time was more insistent and the third time was downright frazzled, just over her ear. She opened her eyes, and found her brother learning over her. Morose though she felt, she could not help but start.

"Hikaru… You're back?" She pulled herself up into a seating position. "I didn't know you were getting out today. How are you feeling?"

"Alright. Still not supposed to run or do anything too strenuous, but I thought I'd surprise you." Hikaru sat back on his haunches, evidently relieved that she was neither dead nor seriously injured. "What are you doing on the ground?"

"Oh, just… resting."

"Resting? Out here?" Hikaru cocked his head with a chuckle, ever the curious Golden Retriever pup. "Doesn't seem too comfortable."

"That's okay," Kaoru said, mirroring his posture as she sat on her calves, the basketball in her lap. "My dad always said a soft bed makes for a soft body."

Hikaru narrowed his eyes a bit to observe Kaoru. Until now, his sister had pointedly avoided talking about her parents, and the fact that she had volunteered something about her father out of the blue was a surprise indeed. And yet, while she seemed to have been trying her best to make her voice sound jauntily nonchalant, she had also quickly turned away and was looking at the horizon of glowing buildings.

"Seems… like your dad was a very special man," Hikaru said.

Hikaru moved closer toward her, shifting so that he was facing in the same direction. Yes, it was strange perhaps that she had mentioned her father all on her own, but then again, the Kaoru he had seen in the hospital was far different from the Kaoru he found on the basketball court. Even on the first night, Kaoru had looked strong - or like she was very much trying to be. And every day after that, she would come in dressed so smartly, her back ramrod-straight, and would smile so bravely through his lame attempts to entertain her. He had tried, time and again, to think what it would feel like if he lost HIS parents. Kaoru or no Kaoru, he concluded, he certainly could not imagine himself getting up to make the same trip across town every day, alone - and awe could not begin to describe what he had felt toward her.

But the Kaoru who sat beside him now was far smaller and sadder, and there was something so pained in the way she hunched her shoulders and hugged the ball against her chest that it made him want to put his arm around her - or at least offer his jacket if he were wearing one.

"Kaoru, are you cold?" he asked. "Do you want to go inside?"

She shook her head as if to indicate - no, she wanted to watch the city skyline as if it were some odd, celestial screensaver.

"Can you tell me more about your dad?"

Kaoru looked down at her hands, poised over the taut leather of the ball, as if trying very hard to remember. Hikaru waited, with baited breath, as her stomach rose and fell in time with her breathing.

"He was a really good person," she said at last, as if speaking to no one in particular. "He was all about me not being lazy. About not taking a single day for granted. Or taking anything for granted at all, really."

Hikaru could not help but chuckle under his breath. Mr. Suzumiya probably would not have liked HIM, then. He was as lazy a bum as they came - and he didn't even need his own father to tell him that on the daily. As for taking things for granted - he was not naive. He knew that pretty much everyone at Ouran took just about everything for granted, and he did too, and that was simply the state of things.

"It's funny," Kaoru continued. "He never got mad at me for any of the stupid stuff I did that almost got me kicked out of school. He probably knew I didn't mean any harm - I just had too much energy and didn't know what to do with myself. But if he caught me being lazy - that was another story."

"Really? What did he do?" Hikaru caught himself thinking that, whatever Kaoru's father might have thought of HIM, he certainly would not have minded meeting him - and perhaps having a beer with him if he were older.

"Well, there was this one time last year when we went to Kyoto."

Kaoru's voice had grown a touch livelier - but only a touch - and she fixed her eyes on the horizon and fell into the same measured, storytelling tone that Hikaru first observed when she recounted the discovery of the nail polish shop in Shin-Takashimadaira.

"We'd had the trip planned for a while," she said, "But mom ended up having to go in for a minor surgery and was recovering, so it was just the two of us. And I was having a really sad phase for no reason, and never wanted to get out of bed in the morning. So the way he dealt with it was - he would throw open the windows, and start blasting some Broadway musical on the stereo. First it was _Jesus Christ Superstar_, then _The Phantom of the Opera_ - you know that sudden, explosive part in the beginning with the organ? It's rousing, but terribly scary if you're trying to sleep. And I'd yell and throw pillows at him, but he wouldn't give up." She paused, and Hikaru realized it was to keep her voice from breaking. "He'd keep blasting whatever it was until I got out of bed, and then he'd run me all over Kyoto as if we were on some timed scavenger hunt. And when it was over" - she swallowed - "I realized it was the best vacation I had in my life."

She covered her eyes with her hand.

Hikaru realized he did not want to think anymore. He shifted toward Kaoru and put his arm around her shoulders. For a second, he half-expected her to start, or at least to look up, but she did not. Instead, a small shiver stole across her shoulder, and she let herself lean into the hug just the tiniest bit. He found himself overcome by the reality of her - for Kaoru had muscle, and bone, and blood, and a heart that beat, and wasn't just going to disappear under his fingers. A few moments passed before he could speak again.

"I'm… happy you shared that with me, Kaoru," he said, wondering immediately if the words were even necessary. "Your dad was a wonderful man. It would have an honor to know him."

And I wish to God your father wasn't just a memory anymore - he wanted to add. Because you don't deserve to be so sad. You're so strong, and so lovely. You look like a queen, so poised and so dignified, but you feel like a chrysalis. And when you tell stories, it's like you have the power to teleport everyone around you to the places you've been. And anyone who makes you smile has it made - whether it's by blasting "The Phantom of the Opera" to get you out of bed, or by doing about anything else.

Kaoru was still looking down, and Hikaru had let the silence sit. In truth, she could not remember the last time she had been touched that way, and it was certainly the first time on THIS side of reality. It felt… unfathomable, a complete reframing of things, and yet like the most natural thing that could be, as if a glass wall between her and the world had been shattered.

They sat in silence for a few moments, the city blazing in the distance, and then she heard the guitar riff from the song "Shissou."

She reached into her pocket, but was surprised to find it wasn't vibrating.

"Hello?"

Hikaru slid open his phone and held it to his ear.

Kaoru's breath lodged in her throat before she could gasp. "Shissou" was not exactly the most common choice in ring tones - nor did it come standard.

"Okay, be right there." Hikaru snapped his phone shut and smiled apologetically. "You know your house is too big when your parents call your cell to tell you it's dinner time," he chuckled, got up, and stretched out a hand. "Come on. I'm hungry. Let's have dinner."

Kaoru looked at the hand, a bit dazed, and felt at once cold - Hikaru gone from her side - and like she was percolating. She stared at the hand for a long moment, and Hikaru waited, his eyelids slightly lowered and a smile playing on his lips in a mien reminiscent of Yuzuha's old-world breeding and grace. Suddenly, Kaoru had visions of being dressed in furs and getting out of a stagecoach with Hikaru offering his hand in just that way, in an era when a brush of fingers meant a great deal more.

She took a breath, nodded, and pushed herself off the ground with both hands, letting go of the basketball.

…

Even on weeknights, the Hitachiins dined with white tablecloths, and Kaoru had concluded that looking somewhat presentable for the evening meal was only proper. To that end, she had stopped by her room before dinner to change out of sweats and fix her hair. As she studied her expression in the mirror, she remembered Hikaru, and how stoically disappointed he looked when she pooh-pooh'ed the hand he offered to help her. She had immediately regretted that decision - it had been silly, after all, to read so much into things. He had hugged her because she was sad, and because she had shared something meaningful. That's all it was - the long and the short of it.

And yet - she thought as she ran her hairbrush through her hair - there was still that one, other time. Even though Hikaru had been berated for touching her hair, and had kept mum about it afterwards, the one day she had shown up to the hospital with her hair loose he had said that he liked it that way. When she asked him why, he said it was because he'd always wanted to do something. And then he had reached out and tucked a stray lock behind her ear, and blushed, and taken a very deliberate gulp of lavender-flavored mineral water.

Kaoru quickly pulled the tie out of her hair, brushed the frizz from it, and gave it a quick once-over with hairspray. If nothing else, she thought, it might cheer Hikaru up and make him feel less slighted.

Downstairs, Yuzuha and Yuzuke kept eyeing each other with surreptitious smiles, and the mood was cheery. None of the staff had known that Hikaru would be returning that day either, and they all seemed to tarry just a bit as they walked through the dining room to ask him numerous questions, all of which he answered very eagerly. Moreover, he made sure that the wait staff thoroughly educated Kaoru on the etymology of each dish, and peppered their explanations with culinary anecdotes that he and Yuzuke, both gourmands, had amassed over the course of their travels. As a result, the dozen candles that served as the centerpiece had burned halfway down their lengths when Yuzuha dropped the bomb, having patiently waited for the end of a story about halibut eaten in Prague that tasted like river-water, but in a "good way."

"Kaoru," she said, "I've been meaning to talk to you about something - though I wanted to wait until Hikaru was home."

Kaoru put down her fork - truthfully, she still had trouble remembering where it went in the long line of utensils - and swallowed, her throat suddenly dry.

"Have you talked to your extended family at all? The ones in Kyushu?

"Yes, a little."

Kaoru was anticipating this conversation - or something like it. But this was not what she expected Yuzuha to lead with.

"The wake is the day after tomorrow, by the way," Kaoru added quickly, wondering if she had misjudged what the conversation was really about.

"Good." Yuzuha smiled her placid Mona Lisa smile. "Would you like us to be there?"

"No, that won't be necessary…" Kaoru paused, wondering if blurting out a negative answer so quickly and so decisively was rude, given everything the woman had done for her. "What I mean is - you didn't know each other. And I don't want my parents' day to be overshadowed by me revealing that I've got family I didn't know existed."

"I understand." If Yuzuha was offended, she certainly gave no sign. "My other question, though, was if you'd given any thought to where you'd like to live once all is said and done."

Yuzuha took a sip from her tumbler as she waited for Kaoru's answer, leaving a small smear of lipstick on the rim, and the girl could not help but feel just as cornered as she had on the first day, when Yuzuha found her in Hikaru's room. In fact, Mrs. Hitachiin's question was the very one she had actively avoiding. Kaoru cast a desperate glance at Hikaru, who sat across from her, but the latter looked far too much like a prisoner awaiting his sentence to be of much help.

"I'm not sure," Kaoru replied.

"Well, we were thinking that unless you want to go to Kyushu," said Yuzuha, "It only makes sense that you stay with us. You and Hikaru seem to be getting along well, and as his sister your welfare is very important to us. In fact, we can go ahead and move to officially adopt you into our family, if that's something you're interested in. It would be an adult adoption at this point, of course - same as for the purposes of continuing a family lineage. I believe at 15 you're old enough."

Yuzuha's smile spread a touch wider than Mona Lisa's and Kaoru could swear she saw her hand inch closer to her husband's. Hikaru did not look like he was breathing.

Of course. That's where things were headed all along, wasn't it? It took an idiot not to realize it. And Yuzuha was right - it only made sense, given the alternatives. Kaoru would want for nothing that way, and going to Kyushu and putting 600-some miles between her and Hikaru was not something she wanted to think about. And yet, to hear it put so plainly had framed things in an entirely different light. Just like the day she had seen her parents lying on two cold slabs, it infused things with a terrible, irreversible finality.

"You've been very kind, Mr. and Mrs. Hitachiin," Kaoru said, making a desperate play for time as she stretched the honorifics as long as she could manage. "But you are too kind. It's such a generous offer, I don't know what to say." She bowed her head and cast a quick look at Hikaru with just her eyes, and bit her lip.

It seemed like Yuzuha's aura of quiet imperiousness was the only thing that kept her brother from sprawling on the floor, clutching her knees, burying his face in her skirt, and weeping like a baby.

"Nonsense, Kaoru," said Yuzuke, "We feel terrible that you and Hikaru had been separated for so long. And anyone can see you have a very special bond. We feel it is only right."

And yet - Kaoru could not help but think, even as she stared into her plate - an adult adoption. It would mean that she would have to go to city hall herself and take her name - quite physically - from her parents' registry book and transfer it to the Hitachiins'. The thought of her parents' registry, empty of heirs as if none had ever existed, was enough to make her feel like the halibut she consumed had come alive and was swimming in her stomach.

Kaoru swallowed, straightened her shoulders, and looked at the Hitachiins.

"I want to accept. I really do," she said. "I know there's no other place I would rather be living," she added with a glance in the direction of a fast-wilting Hikaru. "But I don't think an official adoption is something I'm ready for. It's… nothing against you, it's just that I'm literally the only person with my last name in my generation. My father's cousin in Kyushu - the only other Suzumiya man - has no children either, and a business. I feel like there are certain things I have to… And my parents - I don't want to…" She trailed off and looked back at the mosaic rim of her plate, hoping the Hitachiins would understand without her going into more detail.

"Well, that's alright," Kaoru heard Yuzuha's voice, mellifluous as ever, and raised her head - still shaking a bit. "It's up to you - and it's not a decision you have to make right away. Although if you're going to be living here, you're going to have to tell your relatives what's going on at some point so they don't get worried."

"But the good news is, you're staying!" Hikaru exclaimed. "My little sister's STAYING!… Mother, may I…?"

Yuzuha nodded indulgently as Hikaru made a move to get up - the Hitachiins were quite strict about getting up from the table during dinner.

"Kaoru, you're STAYING!"

The boy trotted around the long table, all but sprinting the last third of the way, and Kaoru grabbed hold of the cushion of her chair just in case - though it was still not enough to keep her from pitching violently to the left when he tackled her.

… Which may have been just as well, had Kaoru's hair had not pitched in the same direction she had, whiplashing past the low-burning candles.

Before half a second was up a good twenty inches were in flames, propelled by high-performance hairspray - and her scalp might have met the same fate if Hikaru had not seized a pitcher of water and dumped it on her head, and Yuzuke had not thrown his blazer over her to put out the remnants.

Kaoru began to scream.

She screamed hysterically for a good minute, even as her brother batted her feverishly over the blazer to smother the fire. By the end, half the household staff came running, bearing - by that point - a rather useless fire extinguisher.

When the dust settled, the blazer was pulled off to reveal a frightened, hyperventilating Kaoru, her hair singed to just below her ears. With no vertical tresses to frame her face she looked even more the clone of Hikaru, and a few of the staff could not help gasping.

"Oh, no, Kaoru…" Hikaru's legs bucked, and he fell to his knees. "I'm so, so, so, so, so sorry" - he sounded nearly as hysterical as Kaoru looked. If before he looked like a prisoner awaiting his sentence, by now he was a dead man walking. "I'm an idiot… A stupid, stupid idiot…" he repeated, burying his face in his hands.

Yuzuha got up from her chair. Somehow, she had managed to remain perfectly unruffled, and had not moved except to press a few buttons on her handheld device to summon the staff and - in all probability - the fire department.

"Alright, thank you very much, everybody, for your very prompt response," she said, as if what transpired had been nothing more than a test of the emergency alert system. "We'll take it from here. Toroko, Katsumi, stay behind."

Yuzuha made her way around the table and put her hand on Kaoru's shoulder. The girl was still shaking, and there was a harsh smell of burnt keratin in the air, mixed in with the sickly-sweet of hairspray.

"How are you feeling, darling?"

Kaoru took a ragged breath and nodded.

"I'm alright, Mrs. Hitachiin… It's just ha-"

Kaoru paused. She still felt raw, but the adrenaline in her veins was starting to dissipate, and suddenly - paradoxically - every muscle in her body felt the same bliss it did after a grueling run, when you wanted nothing but to come home, collapse in bed, and sleep happily ever after. She looked down at Hikaru, who was still kneeling with his face in his hands, evidently trying to disappear. Her head felt too light for comfort, even considering the loss of her hair, and she lifted a hand to touch the back of her neck - so bare it felt like someone else's.

She began to laugh, and laughed - spasmodically - for far longer than she ought to have done.

"Get up, Hikaru," she said at last, recovering her breath. She stretched out her hand as his brother raised his eyes at her, incredulous. "You're not an idiot. All things considered, it could be much worse. They could be rushing me to the ER, and I REALLY don't want to go back to the hospital right now."


	6. Last Rites

"Kaoru, are you SURE you don't want me to come with you?"

The twins were sitting in the back seat of the car on the way to the funeral. Kaoru was looking out the window, and her black silk kimono, embroidered with a floral design in matte thread, made her skin paler and her hair redder. Hikaru wore a plainer men's kimono to match, just in case Kaoru changed her mind. Sayoko Suzumiya had been a practicing Buddhist, and the funeral was going to be a traditional one.

"I'll be alright."

"Okay, whatever you're most comfortable with."

Hikaru decided not to press the conversation further, and studied his sister out of the corner of his eye. He still marveled at just how well she managed to keep herself together, even as she dealt with grief he could not begin to imagine. Through it all, aside from the moment they had shared at the basketball court, she had remained stoic and beautiful, carrying her grief with a solemn dignity few people twice her age were capable of. And she didn't seem less herself for it. She was still Kaoru - just… further away, as if she'd gone someplace in her mind - the same way she did when she told stories, but this time she wasn't taking anyone with her.

In fact - Hikaru thought as his eyes fell on the baby hair at the nape of her neck - dealing with things so well it was nearly frightening seemed to be a pattern with Kaoru. When she had lost her hair the day before yesterday, she had screamed for a good minute, and then laughed like a mental patient. But once she'd recovered from the shock, she offered no further comment on the issue. And come next morning, things appeared to go back to normal, if you didn't count the fact that Kaoru's breasts had grown slightly larger - probably by some artificial means - and she had started wearing skirts a little more on the billowy side. Hikaru had at first been perturbed by the circumstances, and had almost started tiptoeing around her in case some terrible crash was still on its way. But two days had passed and she truly seemed to have forgiven him. She'd even let him accompany her to the stylist, and teach her how to arrange her hair in the same artfully windswept way he did his. At last, Hikaru had concluded that in light of the loss of her parents, something as ephemeral and mutable as hair was small potatoes. And if from time to time he didn't notice her raise her hand to her chest, fingering for something - only to pause, hesitate, and put it down again - he might have been able to forgive himself as well.

The car came to a stop - as arranged, a block away from the temple, just in case Kaoru's arrival in what resembled a limo would serve to alienate her from her family. Kaoru took a deep breath. Hikaru reached across the seats and took her hand in his.

"I'll be right here if you need me," he said. "Call or come get me at any time, okay?"

Kaoru nodded and closed her eyes as she fiddled with the drawstring purse that came with the kimono, her fingers ashen against the black cloth. She reached for the door, but her hand paused over the handle. She turned around - and before Hikaru knew what was happening, she had pulled him into a hug so sudden and so tight he hardly knew what to think until it was over and she was gone, with a rustle of silk and a slam of the door.

...

Kaoru's father's cousin had been the closest thing Eiji Suzumiya ever had to a brother. Being his closest male relative, Kenji Suzumiya had also taken it upon himself to arrange the wake and the funeral. Kaoru took her place by his side at the door of the temple as the guests filed inside. Together, it would be their task to greet everyone as they entered, and to oversee the distribution of condolence money envelopes. And that was just as well - it took Kaoru's mind off what was inside the ceremony hall.

When she saw the bodies at the wake one day prior, Kaoru had expected to feel more. But if in the hospital, from afar, her parents had looked like effigies, when the morticians were done this came to be doubly true. The figures in the coffins at the altar seemed like nothing more than wax likenesses - with sleeping faces done up in thick, ghoulish makeup to hide their true color. As Kaoru looked at them, she felt sad, but mostly at how desperate of a charade it all was. The whole thing had the air of an absurdist play, and the curtain had just risen on the second act: the funeral, at the end of which the effigies would go up in flames.

As far as performances went, thus far it had been impeccable. The Kyushu set had come out in their complete assembly, and a number of the Suzumiyas' neighbors, friends, and coworkers were also in attendance. Altogether, it made for a gathering of some significance, and best of all, everyone knew their place, their steps, and their lines. Kaoru knew hers too, of course, and they were easy. Just bow, and nod at the perfunctory offers of help, and give a small smile now and then to deflect the pity. No, remembering names isn't necessary - you're grieving, you can't be expected to. And thankfully, your hair seems to take everyone's mind off the obvious question. Just tell people you've cut it as a sign of respect - it sounds far better that way, anyway. She still felt naked without her hair, and the occasion made her feel doubly naked, so at first it had been difficult. But the set of prayer beads her uncle had given her became something to tug on as she used to do on her hair, and soon she fell into a rhythm. Before she knew it, all the guests had filed in, and it was time for them to take their places in the front row of the mourners' hall, in the section reserved for family.

The service began, and the priest started to chant a sutra, his voice floating to the roof and mixing with curls of smoke from the incense burners. Kaoru did not catch the words of the chant, but as she listened to the swell of the sound she had the distinct image of a river rounding a bend in its course, its waters full, rich, and sonorous. Her parents were gone - definitely gone - having lived their lives as best they could, and as the shoal along the river of time where they lay buried faded from view there was nothing to be done but look forward and to try, as impefectly as she might, to live in a way that might honor them. They had been such good people, after all, and had never hurt anybody. Dad's company was not the sort that put people out of their homes only to resell the land to millionaires, and he had always had a kind word for the drifters who would passed through town - along with an odd job for a fistful of yen. And Mom donated to charities, fed stray cats and worked in a preschool in a low-income neighborhood even when she could have accepted a better position. Heck, they had even adopted her - a redheaded no-name from nowhere, and made her feel like nothing but their blood for as long as she could remember. No, when it came down to it, it simply wasn't fair that the world had to be rid of them - even as so many other, worse people worse continued living. And they had been so happy. Kaoru felt the tears rising to her eyes, for the first time in days.

The sutra ended, and the mourners lined up to offer incense, with Kaoru, her uncle, and the rest of the Kyushu lot at the head of the procession. Kaoru was the first to approach the altar. She lit the stick of incense from the candle, and her eyes fell to her parents' faces. For a second it seemed that under the makeup they were merely asleep.

Be happy, she thought. The incense turned red-hot, burned for a spell, and then faded. Be happy and sleep - you deserve it. Don't worry about me. I'll muddle through somehow. After all, you've raised me well.

…

Kaoru had ridden with uncle Kenji in the funeral procession to the crematorium, and Hikaru's car had followed via an alternate route to escape detection. And now the time had come to see her parents off on what would truly be their last journey. The crematorium offered a special service: the family could stay and watch the coffins burn in a room with a big-screen TV set aside specifically set for that purpose. And while Kaoru's uncle had asked her several times if she was absolutely sure she wanted to stay, she had insisted that she was. She wasn't sure why she had done so. A part of her felt like her father's spirit still lingered somewhere close by, and would not want her to be a scaredy cat. Another part simply wanted to see things through. But more than that, as time went on she found herself functioning more and more on autopilot.

It would only be a box, after all, burning on a big TV screen. She'd seen them dead, the blood freshly washed from their faces. How much worse could it be?

The TV turned on and the coffins slid inside a large oven.

And then something snapped in Kaoru, harder and more definitively than it ever had done before.

Bodies. That's all they were. And yet, as the windows of the oven grew brighter and the shapes in the boxes began to squirm, it looked like they had come alive again, and were struggling, by some primal instinct, to hang on - if only for a second longer.

She hadn't seen them die. She was glad she hadn't had to. But she had not realized it until that moment.

Her throat began to close up. Not with tears, no - on its own accord, as if a hand, with skeletal claws for fingers, had clamped in a vice-like grip over her neck. And then the stars came - bright and neon like silent gunshots leaving bullet holes in the tapestry of her mind. They started out sparse, but quickly grew thicker. Before she knew it, it was all she could do to keep herself upright as she stumbled out of the room, down the hallway, and into a bathroom, shutting the stall door behind her just as the world went black.

…

When Kaoru came to, she wasn't sure how much time had passed. By all accounts, it was still daytime, as the sunlight still slanted through the window, and her head did not hurt - so she probably had not hit it as she fell. The side of her kimono had a few skid-marks, but that was the worst of it. She pulled out her phone - it was an hour and a half later. That would mean that the cremation would still be going on. Oh well - she probably had no need to check the several missed calls she had. The people who were trying to call her must have been just outside. Time to face the music. She would not go in that room again - that much was certain. But being MIA like that was downright rude, even if they might have anticipated the effect the cremation would have on her. She stepped out of the stall and adjusted her obi in the mirror. She then brushed - if somewhat ineffectually - at the skid-marks on her hip. Finally, she straightened her shoulders and took a deep breath.

It's alright. The whole thing's almost over.

She was halfway down the hall on the way to a room set aside for those who did not want to watch but still wanted to stay and visit when she heard voices coming through the open door.

" - So I had stepped out for a breath of air just an hour ago, and what do you think I saw the little minx doing?"

The speaker was aunt Mitsuko, uncle Kenji's wife, who always tended to speak louder than necessary on account of a bout of meningitis that left her partially deaf. And ordinarily, Kaoru might not have paid any attention - she knew the Kyushu branch of the family well enough to have heard rumors that aunt Mitsuko's hearing was far from the only thing about her that wasn't altogether there. But somewhere between the words "an hour ago" and "little minx," the statement gave Kaoru pause, and she stopped in her tracks just shy of the door to listen.

"I saw her getting in some rich man's Lexus!"

The listeners gasped, and tittered inaudibly in response.

"… With custom license plates and windows tinted dark as could be! Mind, my hearing might not be what it used to be, but my eyesight's still like a hawk's. It was a block down the street, but I saw it. And to think, before her parents' ashes were even cold!"

"And I saw her too, I can vouch," added a lower voice that Kaoru identified as that of great-aunt Chiyo, uncle Kenji's mother. "It just goes to show - I was right to oppose it all along. We all were. These orphanage kids, nine times out of ten they're bad stock, and bad blood will make itself known, sooner or later."

Kaoru's head began to spin again. She grabbed hold of the wall to keep upright.

"Yes, who's to say her TRUE mother wasn't a…" - the speaker, a third woman, lowered her voice, though Kaoru could imagine her expression only too well.

"Sayoko, Gods rest her soul, was far too kind, poor thing," added yet another woman, "Perhaps it's for the best that she's not here to see any of it."

Kaoru could feel the world crashing around her - its boulder-sized fragments landing inches away all around her. Her parents had warned her something like that might happen, of course. But so far it had always been merely in the realm of the hypothetical. She had never thought the day would actually come. At least not this soon, and not like this. And definitely not before - oh, if she didn't feel like she was five again, lost in the middle of a rainstorm, about to pee her pants, and crying for her mother, the irony would have been too much to handle.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed uncle Kenji coming out of the viewing room, and saw him catch sight of her. In fact, he was coming toward her - probably with a mind to join his wife and the others.

She would have to act fast, Kaoru thought. That - and hope to God that her uncle believed her.

...

When Kaoru emerged from the building halfway through the cremation, Hikaru immediately knew something was wrong. As she got back in the car, she slid across the seats with an uncharacteristic violence and stared - seething - at a single spot in space for a good minute.

"Hikaru," she finally said, "Did you come out of this car at all while I was in there?" Her voice was hollow. Not accusatory or angry - just hollow.

Oh. Crap.

"Uh… yeah, briefly," he replied in a small voice. "When I get nervous I get claustrophobic sometimes… I tried to call you but... I'm sorry."

Kaoru leaned back against the seat and closed her eyes, breathing in and out several times - noisily and deliberately.

"Did something bad happen?" Hikaru asked in a quivering voice, "I KNEW I should've told the driver to go further away - around the corner or something. I'm so sorry, I didn't think…"

You don't think a whole lot, do you? - Kaoru wanted to scoff, unsure whether to laugh or weep at the hand fate had dealt her. But no. This wasn't the time. And perhaps she was better off knowing sooner rather than later.

"Never mind, let's go."

She grabbed his wrist, and pulled him out of the car after her.

…

Kaoru held Hikaru's arm at a somewhat painful angle, and he could not help wincing every step of the way as she marched him down the street, up the steps, and into the front hall of the mortuary. At any other time, he might have been amused. Kimono were not made for marching in - they were the original garment that encouraged the small, mincing steps girls still seemed to favor the entire nation over. But Kaoru did not seem to care, and as a consequence, the front of her robes billowed in an unseemly way until she hitched them up to stomp up the steps. And he did not dare laugh - for it was quite clear that she was dead-set on something, and would have marched over his head, his manhood, and a caterpillar tank for good measure if that's what it took to achieve her end.

As they entered the hall, his sister took a second to straighten her kimono around the chest, and to recover her queenly air before approaching a knot of people in a doorway. The people - a man and two women - had grown abruptly silent as the twins appeared, but Kaoru still bowed her head as if apologizing for the interruption.

"Uncle? Aunt? Great-aunt? Can I talk to you?"

Hikaru noticed that she spoke, quite emphatically, to only one of them - a portly man of a respectable age with kind if somewhat anemic features. And though she called each family member by title and honorific, she acknowledged their presence in no other way, and made no effort to hide the fact.

"Of course, Kaoru," the man replied. "Should we talk here - or somewhere else?"

"Here is fine. I have nothing to hide."

The man nodded, his amoeboid features folding into what, with him, probably signified indulgence. The women kept their eyes firmly glued on the three of them.

"Uncle," said Kaoru firmly, enunciating each syllable with a pointed force meant to leave no room for miscommunication. "This is my brother." She was still gripping Hikaru's arm, and pushed him forward.

"I only found him a little while ago," she continued. "We were separated at the orphanage and taken in by different families. He's been waiting for me in the car outside, and the only reason I didn't want to introduce him to you all was because I was waiting for the right time. I didn't want to steal my parents' moment by revealing such big news. But I changed my mind - because I've been made aware of certain rumors about me - that I've taken up with some rich man after my parents' death. And I just wanted to set the record straight. When I said I've been living with friends, I meant that I've been living with my brother and his family, and yes, I suppose they're important enough to have a car that might attract a bit of attention. But I am very, very disappointed that people jumped to conclusions and thought I was an immoral woman. Because my parents might not have given birth to me, but they raised me right. And it's an insult to their memory that people would talk about me like that without any reliable evidence… before their ashes were even cold."

She broke eye contact with her uncle, and let her eyes dart to the three women behind him, who by then had begun to look like they were being read their last rites. She still held Hikaru's wrist, and were he not quite so floored by the sight of fifteen-year-old Kaoru confronting four adults - all of a very distinguished age - he might have been afraid for the blood supply to his fingers.

"Kaoru," said the uncle, taking a step forward and placing a hand on her shoulder, which she did not acknowledge. "I think we need to take this conversation somewhere else."

He motioned her and Hikaru into the room whose threshold they had been standing on, and closed the door behind them. He invited them to take a seat, which they did, and settled in the arm chair just opposite. There was a tea set on the table, and he offered them both a drink, but refreshments were the farthest thing from the twins' minds right then, and they declined. The uncle folded his hands over his portly belly.

"Kaoru," he began, the same indulgent look of a gentleman of leisure in his eyes. "First of all, I am truly sorry for the malicious rumor you had to hear about yourself. I can only imagine how it must have felt. Especially on an occasion like this."

Kaoru remained silent, digging her fingers into the fabric of her kimono over her knees. The man continued.

"And I am very sorry you had to learn about it that way, but there is a reason why, when we spoke on the phone, I did not insist that you come live in Kyushu with us." He paused, and sighed with all the desperate gravity of an inexperienced doctor delivering a deadly diagnosis. "The fact of the matter is - and I am sure your parents have spoken to you about this already - but… The truth is, while there's a long history of adult adoption in our country, there are still many people who do not view adoption of children in a favorable light. In fact, when your parents decided to take you in, some of the older members advised them to move to a bigger city and start fresh, for fear of how it may be perceived in our town. And it's unfortunate, but many people in our own family still hold some of the same... attitudes."

He paused, and looked at the girl, whose face looked like it was chiseled from stone, her eyes fixed on a single point between the two of them.

"And that is why… That is why I didn't think you would be happy if you came to live with us. Because it would have come out, sooner to later. And I think…" He glanced at Hikaru, who, much like Kaoru, looked as if he had been stricken by lightning. The older man's eyes grew softer. "If you found someone who is your blood, and who you're happy with, then that's a very, very good thing."

Kaoru looked back at the man. Throughout his speech, she had not moved or made a sound, but Hikaru could see that she had been steadily breaking. By the end, she looked like a house torn down from the inside, with only the outside skeleton left standing to await demolition. And yet her pupils were still flint ready to catch fire.

"Uncle," she said, "My brother's family asked if I wanted them to adopt me - as an adult, at this point. And given what's come to light I've been thinking of saying yes. That is, if you don't mind not having someone to take over your business."

Hikaru caught his breath in surprise and his hand flew out onto her forearm on its own accord. If she was annoyed - or embarrassed - she gave no sign, and seemed to accept it. The uncle's sad, piggish eyes seemed to smile a bit.

"Kaoru," he said, "Your father was like a brother to me, and I know he always respected your wishes. If that is what you think will make you happy, I have no objection. The business will manage." He gave a wink and a low chuckle that echoed in his well-fed belly. "After all, I can adult-adopt someone too." He rose to his feet.

"I'm sorry, I did not catch your name," he said, extending a hand to Hikaru.

"Hikaru. Hikaru Hitachiin." The boy rose and clasped the hand. A wave of incredulity ran over the man's features, but was gone as quickly as it came, and he smiled wider, gripping Hikaru's hand firmly in both of his.

"Take good care of her, young man," he said. "She's worth her weight in gold, that one."

…

"I just… I cannot believe it… How COULD they?"

As they drove away from the crematorium, Kaoru sat in the back seat in much the same attitude as when he'd dropped her off at the temple - her arms folded over her chest, and staring into the darkening sky outside the window. Except this time she was at once so livid and so broken, she was barely coherent. Hikaru watched her from a respectful distance.

Over the past half hour, he had come to realize that things were about to get VERY inconvenient.

He had first gotten the inkling as he listened to her school her uncle and aunts, serving them just desserts for the faux-pas that was gossiping at a funeral. It had only grown stronger when he saw her take the rudder and declare that she was ready to be a Hitachiin. And it had solidified to the consistency of reinforced concrete as he watched her during the bone-picking ceremony, passing her parents' remains to her uncle with chopsticks as he deposited them in an urn, all the while talking to him continuously, forcefully and with unparallelled pride about the good sorts of people they were, and how she could only hope to carry out their legacy.

Kaoru wasn't just a pillar of strength - he had realized that day - she was a… powder keg. The sort of girl who, when ill-used, did not take it lying down but gave it right back, threefold. And he wasn't just in awe of her anymore. He didn't just want to protect her. He wanted to be her. No, better yet, he simply… wanted her. In fact, it took all he had not to pull her toward him, pin her back against the seats and make her his in the most primal way possible. It did not even matter that she was his sister. She felt like someone he was close with… but she did not feel like a sister. They had not grown up together after all, and perhaps that was why the checks that should have been in place were mysteriously missing.

He steadied his breath, crossed his legs for good measure, and took her hand - maintaining as respectable a distance as he could to keep himself from doing the unthinkable as he willed his thoughts in another direction.

"Kaoru… I know how you feel," he said.

She looked away from the window and toward him in slight consternation.

"The whole adoption thing. It's hard."

She raised her eyebrows. No shit.

"Has anything like this ever happened before?" he asked, squeezing her hand, "I mean, did anyone ever…. say anything before?"

The flint in her eyes turned to slumbering coals.

"No," she said. "This is the first time anyone ever said anything explicitly. I mean, anything like THAT. My uncle's right, my parents did try to prepare me. But I never thought it'd happen like that - or that it'd come from from them. I mean, we're not super close or anything, but I still thought they were family…" Her voice grew acrid. "I guess it all makes sense now… I just can't believe my mom and dad were basically run out of town for doing a good deed. It's… despicable."

Her mouth began to curl upward and her cheeks and chin started to twitch as tears stopped her throat. Hikaru felt an almost physical pain. He wanted to take her in his arms - except, no. He couldn't. He really, really couldn't. Not if he didn't want things to end in tragedy.

"Your parents… definitely didn't deserve that."

"They didn't. And it's kind of funny - I know they would've done anything for me. But I never realized the extent of the sacrifice they'd already made until now."

"They were good people, Kaoru," he squeezed her hand, doing his best to infuse his voice with the tenderness he ached to express otherwise. The impulse to protect and kiss away the pain was back, but the white-hot passion for the warrior queen had not faded, and it made for a deadly combination. "And so are you, because of them," he added. "No matter what anyone says. I can only guess how much it must've hurt, what they said about you today, but you held your own beautifully in spite of it. Your parents must've done something right."

She chuckled ruefully - so ruefully it might have been a sob.

"It doesn't matter if they did something right. They're still dead. And their family is still talking smack about them at their funeral." She chuckled again. "I mean - it's a FUNERAL. Who DOES that?"

"No, you're right. Nobody," he replied, "It's very bad form. But I still can't help noticing that that you're more upset by the the way your parents have been treated than the way YOU've been treated."

Outside, the sun had set, and the watery blue of twilight had deepened to the ink of night. The light posts illuminated the inside of the car, and Kaoru's shadow zoomed across the seats at periodic intervals.

"Yeah. I guess that's true."

"I think that really says something."

"Really. What do you think it says? That I'm selfless?"

"No - that you're secure in who you are." He took her hand in both of his, the better to anchor himself and to take his mind off the blood that was rising to his neck and his scalp. "That their insults can't touch you. And that you were a real family. Let me guess - your parents told you you were adopted early on so you'd have time to accept it, and told you that no matter what anyone said, you shouldn't listen because it's all lies?"

"Yeah, that's exactly what they said," she said slowly. "How did you know?"

"I know because mine didn't say anything like that. Not until it was too late, anyway."

She looked at him curiously, the residual disdain for her extended family gone from her eyes. It seemed she had suddenly grown aware of her hand in his, too; before, she had been far too deep in her own world to register it.

"Mine didn't tell me I was adopted until I was, like… ten," Hikaru said. "For the longest time there was this weird moratorium on the subject. I always KNEW I was different, I wasn't an idiot - it was obvious that everyone else's parents looked like them while mine didn't. And whenever people saw us together, they'd pause, and there'd always be this question they seemed to be itching to ask but were either too afraid or too polite to do it. And when I asked about it, all mom ever said was, 'genetics are complicated; sometimes kids don't look like their parents'. So I grew up feeling like there was something wrong with me and not really knowing why."

Kaoru listened in awe, the events of the day fading to the back of her mind almost in spite of her best efforts. These rich people really WERE weird… After all, Yuzuha did not seem like a naive woman. Surely, she could not have hoped her son would never put two and two together.

"I finally cornered them when I saw a framed newspaper clipping at someone else's house - it had a picture at an event, with the date, two months before I was born. My mother was in the picture, and she was as skinny as could be. I took a snapshot with my phone and showed her, and at that point she couldn't deny it anymore. I got so upset, I tried to run away from home that very night - to look for my real parents." He chuckled. "I didn't get very far, though. They caught me because I didn't know how to use the subway and was standing in front of the ticket booth looking confused…"

Kaoru had been in no mood for laughing, but she burst into giggles just the same.

"Well, geez, now I know why your mom is so paranoid about the subway…"

"Yeahhhh, that's part of it…." - he laughed - "When they brought me back, my mom started crying. She cried for about five minutes. It was the first time I'd ever seen her that way. I felt really bad for her - I guess I realized right then that I loved her too. So we finally had a conversation about me being adopted - the only real conversation we ever had about it. After that, I tried to listen to her more, and to be nicer to her in general. But the damage was already done. For instance - I really don't know what I would've done if someone said about me all the things they said today about you. I'd probably be out on a ledge somewhere."

"Aw, Hikaru…" Kaoru gasped and caught her hand right before it flew out to touch his face. Somehow, the image of Hikaru on a ledge drove every other thought clean out of her mind, and she grew frightened. "Uh, I mean…" she quickly backpedaled, "In that case, I really hope no one ever says anything bad about you…"

He smiled, and let himself shift a touch closer to her as he cocked his head.

"Nah, I don't think that's gonna happen," he said, "And I suspect I've got my mom to thank for that. She looks all Audrey Hepburn-like, but don't let that fool you - she's on a first name basis with actual Yakuza bosses, and if anyone goes against the family, she turns into a saber-toothed tiger. So anyone who says anything has a good chance of getting mauled."

The expression on his face as he concluded his statement set Kaoru wondering whether he listened to his mother for the reason he said he did. By all accounts, it was equally likely that he did not want to get caught between her claws - or simply thought she was really cool.

"Point is," he went on, "I guess she marches to the beat of her own drummer sometimes, and I'm willing to bet she adopted in part to make a statement. She's got enough social capital to be able to say - yeah, I did X or Y, sue me. But she never thought what impact it would have on me. And that's part of why I'm such a messed up motherfucker - no pun intended."

Kaoru gasped a little - that Hikaru, the seemingly nice boy that he was, would know such words and use them so freely seemed unthinkable. But the word sounded more intriguing on his lips than she liked to admit. And what was still more stirring was that they seemed to have something in common after all. Not just de facto, but in all actuality. It didn't matter that she had armed herself better against the stigma - the world saw them both in the same way. True, it was deucedly unfair that the Suzumiyas had been exiled for doing something controversial when no one could touch Yuzuha no matter what she did. But that didn't make Hikaru any less of a victim. And maybe, just maybe, this meant that she, Kaoru, would not end up being just a passing fad in his life, and would be of use to him - at the very least when it came to keeping him away from ledges.

"I guess the question remains," she said as the car turned abruptly into the driveway, a large flood of light flashing across the interior, "Why on earth did our parents adopts US, of all people, when we look so different from them? I guess if the stigma's really there, you'd want to protect your child by making it hard for people to assume things."

"I don't know," said Hikaru. The car came to a halt, the chauffeur pulled open the door, and he hopped our first, offering a hand to his sister. "I guess you can't help who you fall in love with, can you?"


	7. Johnnie and the Mountain

"Kaoru, come on, you can't just stay in bed all day."

"Go to hell, Hikaru."

Her brother had been right. Kaoru had held her own beautifully the day of her parents' funeral - until she got back to her room that night. Watching her parents burn and learning that her family had never accepted her had proven too much, and the moment the door closed behind her, Kaoru had collapsed in bed in her clothes, and had not gotten up since. Thirty-six hours later, every fiber of her body ached as if she had the flu, her chest felt like an elephant had sat on it, and she ardently wished her brother would go away and leave her in that well of a room to rot. But he didn't seem to want to: he stood over her, with his hands on his hips and that vaguely cocky, won't-take-no-for-an-answer expression, and had been for the last ten minutes.

"Come on, we've only got a couple more days until school starts. We have to make them count."

Kaoru groaned and rolled over on her side so she wouldn't have to face him. School. That was a whole other kettle of fish. It had been decided that she would be joining Hikaru at Ouran Academy. It only made sense; it was a good school. The best, in fact, and hardly a place for a delinquent like her, who scraped through by the skin of her teeth to get into Ouran Public. When she heard the news that she was in, she had wondered just how large a donation Yuzuha had to make. The Hitachiin clock tower, perhaps? Or the Hitachiin Olympic-size swimming pool? The place would probably be full of prodigies and princesses, and the thought alone made her want to burrow under a fort of pillows and sleep forever. Worse yet, Ouran Academy was the latest in a series of events that bore her steadily away from everything she knew.

"Alright, that's it. Up. It get that you're sad, but sleeping all day isn't going to make you feel any better. I've been reading up on this, and that's what it says -"

Hikaru tossed aside the covers and grabbed her by the legs, but she seized the edge of the mattress, and he has not gotten very far before having to dodge a kick aimed at the bridge of his nose.

"Hah! So we're a soccer player, too!" He chucked.

"Grrmmpffff." Kaoru snorted and pulled the covers back over her with a vengeance and curled into a ball.

She had to admit, Hikaru was excellent the day before. He had been so sweet that the tingling in her upper back as he waited on her hand and foot was the only thing that made her forget her misery for a while. When she woke up in just as foul a mood, at first he had left her alone. But then he had marched in at 1 p.m. bearing an oversized teddy bear he had been given for doing some pro-bono modeling when he was four, and climbed into bed, the bear between them in case Yuzuha or Yuzuke came in. He then listened to her cry and rant for a good two hours, holding her hands, and when she had no tears left, he brought her cookies. Despite being a connoisseur of food, he described himself as an appalling chef, and yet the cookies - chocolate chip with Nutella inside - were very good, and very gooey, and later in the day it turned out that Hikaru could make a passable pot of ramen as well. And then he had gotten the help to bring a TV set into Kaoru's room so they could watch cartoons.

But another night had passed and Hikaru wasn't having it.

"Alright, looks like you leave me no choice," Kaoru heard her brother's voice.

She had pulled the covers over her head, but sensed him walk away, and two seconds later there was an abrupt noise of metal sliding against metal. The underside of the covers turned slightly lighter. A creak - and a gust of wind drew across the bed. Another moment passed in silence, punctuated only by Hikaru's footsteps, and then -

HOLY FUCK SHIT ARSE HEADED HOLE….

Kaoru definitely heard the people singing. She heard them singing and damned them all to hell - along with Victor Hugo himself, and the entire Broadway cast of one of the world's most successful musicals.

At first, she did her best to stop her ears, but Hikaru turned up the volume. She pulled a pillow over her head, but the sounds still got through. As the choir continued to belt the apotheosis, promising that the blood of martyrs would irrigate the fields of France, Kaoru finally sat up in bed. Hikaru was standing next to the stereo, smiling the smile of a five-year-old who had painted his mother a picture and hoped she would find it brilliant.

"Hikaru," she seethed. "Do you want me to come over there and rip your head off?"

"I don't know" - his smile became the smile of Loki - "Do you want me to rip off my pants and start the revolution?"

Kaoru collapsed backward and clapped her hands over her face with a groan. The air fluttered through the sheets. Hikaru turned down the volume and came to sit by her side.

"Come on, Kaoru." He peeled her hands away from her eyes. "You know by now I'm a pretty stubborn motherfucker, and I'm not going to give up. So how about we make this fun."

She had been glaring up at him, but his smile was so infectious it was only a matter of time before it smoothed the furrow between her brows.

"How about this. What was your favorite thing to do with your parents?"

…

The path was a winding and steep one, and the afternoon sun had begun to slant and wink through the pines when the twins finally caught sight of the summit. They'd used the Kaoru method of finding a destination. They pulled up an X-marks-the-spot listing of results on an online map and picked one at random, and before two hours were up they were making their way up a seaside mountain trail in Kanagawa prefecture.

Earlier that afternoon, Hikaru had insisted they have the authentic Suzumiya experience, and to that end, they'd eschewed driving in favor of public transportation. Hikaru played the Asian tourist all the way through, taking furtive cell phone pictures of "cute" illustrations of what to do and what not to do on a train, and expressing half-mock, half-unadulterated amazement at the fact that each train seemed to have its own jingle, which played periodically over the intercom. Kaoru had looked a little marinated for the first half of the trip, but as the urban landscape thinned in favor of the glistening mirror of a bay, she had begun to respond in more than monosyllables. Once she looked more lively, Hikaru nestled his chin on the crook of her shoulder so they were facing in the same direction, and asked if she wanted to make a game of who could pick out more sailboats.

The hike itself turned out not only to be steep and serpentine, but also confusing - sign-posts were either positioned ambiguously between forks in the road or missing altogether, and google maps became useless a mile away from the train stop. If not for the help of a few seasoned old lady hikers, with broad-rimmed hats and nordic walking poles in hand, Hikaru joked that they might have had to give in and set up shop as resident holy hermits.

At the top, the ship-mast pines parted to reveal a rock outcropping overlooking the same bay and valley the train had cut through. A tiny temple with a cast-iron bell below the rafters stood a little way's away, and the sun hung above the horizon, touching everything with gold. The forest was as silent as if there wasn't a bird alive, and back at home Kaoru might not have liked it, but this stillness was far different from the purgatory of the Hitachiin house. Now that the city of cubicles and 24-hour in-n-out's lay as far away as a dream, she could not help feeling like she'd gotten out of bed after a long illness. As the breeze drew across the back of her neck - the brother, perhaps, of the one that rustled thought her sheets in the morning - she wanted to breathe with her whole chest. She'd wondered if the hike would make her miss her parents, and part of her had dreaded the ascent, but it her limbs lost most of their heaviness along the way, and now all she felt was something at once ageless yet intensely, comfortingly familiar about the silence that lay over the world like a blanket.

Hikaru was standing atop a rock, surveying the scene with the eye of Balboa laying claim to the Pacific.

"Well-well, what do you think, Kaoru?" he said. "I, for one, move to declare this mission 'totes worth it', even if it leaves my bottom end sore for the rest of the week."

"Well, it's not quite Macchu Picchu," Kaoru chuckled. "But I guess it's alright." She had not wanted to joke, but Hikaru's smile was a bright red fishing float, bouncing atop the waves, and the words had formed on her lips on their own accord.

"Too bad there's no one to take our picture." Hikaru hopped down from his perch. "I guess we'll just have to do a selfie."

"A selfie? Aren't those for posers and 12-year-olds?"

"Yeah, but I don't really know how to work the timed shot doo-hicky, so today we'll just have to be 12-year-old posers."

He pulled her into a hug, raised his cell phone to snap a picture of their faces against the brilliance of the bay, and pressed his lips against her cheekbone.

"Lovely. My first picture with my sister." He slid his finger across the phone's screen. "Facebook (tm) time!"

"Facebook?…" Kaoru swallowed.

"What, you don't want to?" He looked up from the phone screen.

"N-no, it's ok…" Kaoru buried her hands in the pockets of her hoodie and pulled her head into her shoulders. "It's just that…"

Until then, it had just been the two of them. And while their little world had grown both more vibrant and more like home by the day, the mention of facebook reminded her that there was still a big part of Hikaru's life she knew nothing about - a life she had not wanted to imagine existed, but that would burst upon her very soon, perhaps obliterating everything - and from which the mountaintop was only a temporary refuge.

"I guess I'm just a little worried…"

"About?"

"School. What your friends will think of me and such."

"Don't. They'll love you."

"Do they even know I exist yet? Or were you going to tell them with a facebook picture?"

"They don't. I've been holding my tongue when they came to visit me in the hospital, since I wasn't sure what was going to happen and what you would've wanted." He grinned. "As for the picture, that IS kind of what I was thinking, but to be honest I'm kind of torn. I both want to brag about you to everyone who'll listen and hide you away so I can have you all to myself."

Kaoru made no reply, but looked no less anxious, so he tapped the surface of phone with a laugh. "Ok, how about this. This'll go into the private collection for now, and we'll have the dramatic unveiling of the Kaoru come Monday. That way you'll have a couple more days to get used to the idea."

He clapped her on the shoulder and turned on his heel, "Come on. Let's climb that thing over there and ring the bell. It's a little too quiet around here."

…

They shrine was all but abandoned, and they climbed a steep staircase behind the altar to the second level, which stood open to the air like a watchtower. Hikaru spent a few minutes inspecting the thick-walled, lazy-looking bell before concluding that there were no tools in the vicinity to make it toll, and settled down, a might dejected, next to Kaoru. Her legs were dangling over the edge as she stared into the distance, hands balled in her pockets. He gazed at her intently, and noticed that she looked, once again, like one of the characters from the old stories who were capable of sending out their spirits to do their bidding, leaving the shells of their bodies behind. He imagined Kaoru's spirit dancing in the air above the precipice.

"Whacha thinking, sis?"

"Do you think we're closer to them now?" she asked. Her eyes did not leave the horizon. The sun was beginning to sink, its cusp bobbing against the water, the surface ablaze with its rays.

"I don't know." He pulled his knees up to his chest. "Maybe. To be honest, I've never really thought about it."

"Me neither. But it's a nice thought. That gravity reverses when you die, and you fall into the sky and stay there."

"And turn into stars, like the gods and goddesses, right?"

"Yeah."

She turned away from the horizon, and the bright imprint of the sun hung between them.

"I miss them, Hikaru."

"That's perfectly natural, Kaoru." Heck, I miss them too - he thought - even though I've never met them.

"It wasn't fair that they had to die." Her voice sounded ashen.

"No, it's wasn't."

"They were so happy. Who knows what they are now."

Hikaru sighed. She looked thin and pained, folded in on herself - like muscle stretched over too much bone. He wanted to take her in his arms, but thus far he had restricted himself to touching her only when he was sure that bowling her over would have required too violent of an effort, or when there were witnesses. That way, if his instincts got the better of him she'd be in a position to fight back. But if he touched her now and things went south, there was no word for what that would make him. Her hand lay between them, heartbreakingly white, and he felt an almost physical pain as he fixed his eyes on the wooden planks beneath it.

"I guess that's why people invented all those stories about afterlife and reincarnation, Kaoru. To make themselves feel better. But whatever the case may be, I think there's nothing we can do for them now except put one foot in front of the other and hope we meet again someday."

He looked up, and her eyes were waiting for him, soft and sad and just as pale-golden as the decline of day itself.

"You really believe that?"

"Heh. As someone smarter than me once said, I'll believe in anything that gets me through the day, be it a prayer or a bottle of Jack*."

(*He's paraphrasing Frank Sinatra).

"Jack?"

"Yeah. Jack Daniels. One of my good friends, actually. That and Johnnie Walker. There've definitely been times when they were all that kept me truckin'."

Kaoru looked like her spirit had returned, quite decidedly, from bobbing over the precipice, and settled into an incredulous expression on her face.

"In fact, I brought Johnnie on this hike with me."

Because, Goddammit. Strong Kaoru. Small, sad, doe-eyed Kaoru. Stubborn Kaoru. Meditative Kaoru. Slightly naive Kaoru… The Kaorus were emerging far too quickly, and he was mad about them all, the feelings layering thick atop each other. Before long he'd need something to steady his nerves. Not too much, of course - not so much that it'd make him do anything stupid - but just enough to take the edge off.

He reached into the pocket of his vest and extracted a flask.

Kaoru's eyes grew wide.

Dear God - the thought flashed across her mind - He swore, he drank… What else did he do? God damn these rich people….

"Where did you get that?"

"Oh, my parents entertain a lot." He smiled a sliver, unscrewing the cap. "Sometimes they don't finish their bottles, so I help them. They don't KNOW, of course. But I come and siphon off the remains."

Kaoru searched the corners of her mind for even a shred of judgment, but found none. It was quite illegal, to be sure, but all she felt was surprised that Hikaru would even want to do such a thing. Her own parents had, for about a year now, ceremoniously poured her a glass of watered-down Umeshu every week or so, and acted as if it was something special because only adults were allowed to have it. But beyond a feeling of warmth in her fingers and toes, she had never understood what the fuss was about.

"How does it feel?" she asked tentatively.

Hikaru leaned back, propping himself up on his elbows and stretching out his legs, and brought the flask to his lips. He closed his eyes as the contents scorched his throat and slid down his belly.

"Hurts at first, but then it feels very, very good."

He opened his eyes, and realized - with a curse that almost made it to his lips - that it hadn't worked. The burn had spread through his chest and relaxed the flutter in his lungs and stomach. But Kaoru was even more beautiful now, her torso twisted halfway to face him, the drawstrings of her hoodie dangling in the line of the sun like the tassels of a charm. The curve of her lip and the angle of her chin were thrown into sharp relief, and the fingers of light caressed the skin between her jaw and chest like an invisible lover.

Great - he thought, quelling and stuffing away the pleasure that had risen to his face. Now he'd have to take even more care to stay away from her, dancing and pirouetting around in circles when all he wanted was to make them collide. He could see her chest rise and fall as the temerity in her eyes was chased away by what he could only peg as…

Suddenly, he felt as naked as if she could see right through him.

"May I try?" - she reached out a hand.


	8. Hikaru and Kaoru

"Oh, Hikaru, I've never been both so happy and so sad in my life," Kaoru cried as she waltzed into her room, throwing up her hoodie and letting it fall where it would. " I want to do something… damaging. Maybe we really should've gone to party with those university students…"

"NO, Kaoru, partying with the university students would've been a categorically bad idea." Hikaru chuckled. He was following close at her heels, and his head was slightly abuzz, but he was less drunk than he usually got given the amount he'd consumed, the effect of the alcohol attenuated by the self-imposed imperative to keep an eye on Kaoru. As it turned out, he hadn't tried to keep it together in vain. Though Kaoru had probably been too euphoric or too inexperienced to notice, the university students they'd met on the train back had looked like they were divvying her up in their minds, and one of them - he was fairly sure - had his eye on him as well.

"No?" Kaoru spun around on her heel, arms akimbo. "Well - geez, I don't really see why not. We could all be dead tomorrow. It could all end, just like that, and then someone'll be picking OUR bones, too. Life itself is a goddamn choking hazard, if you think about it."

She paused for a few seconds, a silly, desperate smile painted across her face as she laughed noiselessly at the ceiling, then spun around again, and ran to the balcony. The doors were still unlocked, and she threw them open to let in the cool night air. The lights and the faint music of the cocktail party on the patio floated up to where they were, and Kaoru ran to the parapet, her brother following close behind. She leaned back against the bank of concrete and arched her back, digging her fingers into it as if making a move to jump up, but Hikaru put his hands on hers just in time.

"You know," she said, speaking to the sky with a laugh on her lips, "Do you ever feel so awful, all you want to do is dance the night away?"

She jerked her head back. "Do you?"

Hikaru had not expected her to confront him so suddenly. As they made their way home, Kaoru had been uncommonly exuberant, running in circles and telling story after story, rarely finishing one before going off on a tangent only to come back to something he thought she was done discussing an hour ago. In fact, she had gotten happy quite quickly after taking a drink of Johnnie Walker, even though the first swallow had made her wrinkle her nose and squeeze her eyes shut as if in pain. But she never seemed to have been talking directly to him until now - and hadn't looked at him once, that much was certain. But now that she did, she really did look like she had one day to live, and knew it all too well.

He felt a painful tug in his chest that echoed in his throat. Fuck it. He'd tried - he'd tried all day. All week. He really had. And somewhere, on some register, he hoped that would add up in his favor. He let go of her hand, took her chin, and kissed her.

Kaoru's eyebrows shot up and she stifled a gasp. For a moment Hikaru was not sure what to do. He half-expected her to pull away and smack him. It would have only made sense. But a second went by and she did not, so he let himself slowly close his eyes and run a tentative hand up her arm, drawing her closer and gently nibbling her lips as if they were a delicious desert. It was not difficult to imagine. They were just as warm, and had a gentle give, and were almost… sweet. He felt her shoulders sag and her mouth go slack against his thumb as he let his tongue venture in to have a taste as well.

He scanned his thoughts for even a hint of a suggestion that this was wrong - that she was his sister, after all. But, oddly enough, what turned his head the most - literally turned it, making him feel dizzy from a rush of blood up his neck - was that it did not feel wrong at all. It only felt warm, and comfortable, and tender - as tender and velvet-textured as the Kaoru that only seemed to come out under his fingers.

And yet - Kaoru's shoulder blades had sunk a few degrees, and her mouth had gone soft, but the rest of her was still frozen, as if she was waiting for something, breath withheld. He pulled away, and saw that she looked disoriented to the extreme.

"Is this weird? Should I stop?" He raised a hand to his lips - which were feeling naked without hers already.

"N-no…" she said. "But if you're doing this out of pity" - She pulled away, turning her head and covering her eyes.

"Kaoru, no - "

But she was already walking away, and had slammed one of the panels of the door behind her before he had time to blink.

When he walked in, she was seated on the bed, her arms crossed tightly over her stomach. He turned on the bedside lamp, and the darkness scurried into the corners.

"Kaoru, please…"

"No. I know how it is," she said without looking up, "I'm sad, we're both a little drunk. You thought you'd make me feel better. But you're way out of my league. It'll only make things awkward."

Hikaru just barely kept his jaw from dropping. Of all things, the question of "leagues" was what concerned her most about this scenario?

"Kaoru, you DO realize how bizarre that sounds?" he said. "How can I be out out of your league when we look exactly the same?"

"Aurgh, but that's the PROBLEM, don't you see?" she moaned, sprawling backwards over the comforter. "You're a beautiful boy. But no one in their right mind would call me a beautiful girl. I'm tall as a construction crane - for a girl, anyway; my shoulders are broad, my breasts are nonexistent…"

"Tall as a construction crane?" Hikaru chuckled. "Wait a second, I've gotta write that one down." Tipsy Kaoru seemed to have a creative streak when it came to similes.

But Kaoru was sobbing dryly - grimacing at the ceiling with her hands over her eyes, and Hikaru quickly killed the smile and came to sit beside her, drawing her upwards and hugging her around the shoulders. She sagged under his touch.

"Shh, shh," he whispered. "Crying's not allowed in this room, alright?" He took her hands in his and kissed them, each knuckle in turn, as she pulled back against him - though none too effectually. "You're beautiful. And I didn't kiss you out of pity. I wanted to."

"Bullshit," she muttered, turning away.

Hikaru sighed. Evidently, words were useless, so he ran the back of his knuckle across her jaw, down her neck, and over her clavicle, swallowing as the pearlescence of her skin in the cuddle-warm yellow light made him remember things both primal and gentle - things from long before he had even learned to form thoughts. Suddenly, even the tight, percolating urgency that had formed in his chest and started to radiate to his thighs felt like it could wait. For a minute, nothing existed but the carved whorls of the foot of the bed, and the peach-colored lampshade, the bedspread, and the bubble of warmth that bound them together.

She truly was beautiful. He had thought so from the beginning, before he had even gotten past the need to convince himself, every time he looked at her, that no, he hadn't gone mad and wasn't seeing himself dressed in drag and going about his daily business from afar. And her lack of a feminine figure was hardly a lack. While other girls were perpetually in limbo between wanting to show off their assets and apologizing for them, Kaoru didn't seem to be aware of them at all. Together with her long-limbed elegance, it imparted a dawn-of-the-world innocence to her beauty that made him wonder if she'd been raised in society at all, and wasn't a transplant from some isle where time had stood still for a thousand years.

His hand settled over her breast, but all he felt was lace and a thick pad of foam beneath it. Kaoru gave a small moan - almost a squeak, and turned her head farther away, squeezing her eyes shut.

"Kaoru, you don't need this bullet-proof vest…" - he said with a shile.

She turned abruptly back to him, and her eyes were desperate.

"Yes, I do."

"No." He pulled himself closer to her, and drew her into another kiss, this time wrapping his arms around her - one around her shoulders, the other cradling the small of her back - which, like magic, made her arch her torso just a bit, distraught though she was.

"In fact," he whispered against her lips, his voice thickening as a dense fog of blood overwhelmed his mind, and struggled to imagine anything but Kaoru sporting a far from safe-for-work aspect… "Can we take it off? And burn it?"

Kaoru pulled away as if she had been scalded.

"No, I can't… Please..."

Hikaru remained frozen with his hand halfway extended. She slumped her shoulders as if to hide what lay between them.

"I'm… sorry. I didn't mean to…" He stuttered, blinking in an effort to chase the fog from his mind. She wasn't into it - clearly. What was he THINKING?

"No… It's just that…" Kaoru's voice grew swollen. "I just… They're so…"

"They're lovely, Kaoru. In fact, just the thought of them is enough to make me do terrible things."

"No. Don't lie," she spat. "No man alive has looked at them and liked what he's seen. And once when I had a booth at the school art fair, some douche-bag asked me if I was collecting money for breast implants."

Her voice broke and she burst into tears. She wept for a good minute - pitifully - as Hikaru took her in his arms and cradled her head against his chest. She let him. A weeping Kaoru felt as if she had no bones.

"Well, you know," he said once her sobs quieted, "We could talk to some of mom's Yakuza friends and have him murdered."

She looked up, and he saw the corners of her mouth twitch a bit. Her cheeks were still wet, and he pressed his lips to them, lingering as he tasted salt. He smoothed his hand up and down her back, suspending it by the thumb from the bump under her T-shirt.

""Cuz he's a rube and moron. I doubt you were even wearing a bra the day I met you, and you looked perfect."

"Pervert," she snorted.

"Well, look… someone's smiling," he said, planting a butterfly kiss on each of the corners of her mouth. "And I'm not a pervert. I'm just a guy. We notice these things."

He kissed her again before she had time to protest, letting his mouth slide slowly and sensuously over hers as his tongue took a moment to play with its mate. He then trailed his lips down her jaw, neck, and shoulder, sucking a bit of skin with every touch and drinking in the shiver that would steal across her back every time. If her lips had tasted sweet, here she smelled even sweeter - an intimate scent of girls' bedrooms and warm bodies before a shower. She wasn't shrinking away anymore, and was no longer tense - just shivering slightly as his fingers left behind eddies of gooseflesh on skin so warm it was almost steaming. His hand crept up under her shirt in the back, and paused over the same bump - this time unobstructed by cloth.

Shoot. He really didn't know much about those things, and hardly knew the first thing about taking them off, much less with one hand. It did not take much fumbling and picking for him to conclude that it was a cruel joke, that Kaoru was probably sewn into the damn thing, and that she was….

Laughing.

It was a noiseless laugh - a snicker into the hand, but she was laughing nonetheless. If it was anyone else, Hikaru would have considered using his fists as a means of communication. But right then, all he wanted was to die.

He pulled away and covered his face with his hands.

"I'm sorry, Kaoru." He had to work to keep his voice from breaking. "Male downfall…"

He'd been expecting her to be laughing all-out by the time he looked up. He'd even imagined her falling back against the covers and arching her back with mirth splayed all over her features. But she was not, and it was his turn to gasp, for the first thing that met his gaze was Kaoru's midriff, tapering ever so slightly into a slender waist under a shirt hiked up halfway. Her arm was behind her, and she had a smile on her face. Her task done, she extracted her hand and sat back, the bra sagging forward under her shirt as the straps emerged under the sleeves.

"Kaoru…"

Leave it to the lovely Kaoru Suzumiya soon-to-be Hitachiin, he thought, to turn things completely on their head just as he'd come to accept that she would be playing the shrinking violet until the end.

She did not reply, and he shifted back toward her, drawing them both down so their heads lay side by side on the pillows. He brought her face to his, and closed his eyes as he wrapped his lips, once again, around the softness of hers. This time, she kissed back, the flick of her tongue making warmth radiate down his spine. As if on autopilot, he reached his hand under her shirt and began to slide it up again. Up the tightness of the waist, to the sharp line of her ribs, quivering and betraying a fear she was hiding far better than she had been, to the piece of foam that lay ineffectually in the way. His fingers crept under it, and Kaoru drew a quick breath, but he pulled her tighter to him, and let his palm cup the mound of flesh under the foam. It was barely bigger than his own chest muscles - he owned that much - but the gentle give was something new. He pulled away and propped himself up by the elbow, the better to watch her reaction. He kneaded the flesh gently, and she squeaked a bit, just as before, shifting to squeeze her thighs together.

"Does that - feel good?" he asked slowly.

Goodness knew, the softness in his hand - and the rest of Kaoru, so submissive and shy under his fingers, and yet the very surface of her skin so responsive to his touch - was making him feel like he was standing on the prow of a ship with the wind in his hair.

She nodded, her eyes flashing that despairing look again, as if imploring for something she did not know the name of.

"I want to make you feel good," he whispered. "You're beautiful, Kaoru. And I… You deserve it."

She did not answer. From the moment he had kissed her, everything had felt surreal. Her mind, so restless and so in flight until a moment before then, had emptied of all thoughts except one: that this couldn't really be happening. Except for the one moment when he'd looked so cute and confused, stumped by the bra, that she couldn't help but take pity on him, it was all she could think. That this was her brother, and brothers didn't do this. Never mind, no, that wasn't even the worst of it. Here was this BOY, this handsome, rich boy - in all probability a ladies' man - and she'd been thrown together with him quite by chance, only to develop a vague, bizarre crush that she'd refused to indulge, given how it went against the most basic rules of biology and society. And now he was telling her she was beautiful - which she did not believe - and touching her like… like THAT? It was a case of "be careful what you wish for" and no mistake, and sent her mind down paths that she was afraid to pursue. So much so that it almost comforting to focus on the other predicament she was faced with.

All night - nay, all day - she had been a pendulum, swinging between the highest highs to the lowest lows, only to have the kiss open up a whole new bag of insecurities she had hidden behind her bouncy facade for as long as she could remember. She had never felt girl-enough, as if by some cruel twist of fate she had inherited two X chromosomes, but missed the genes they were supposed to contain entirely. No amount of frilly accoutrements could hide it. They only hurt matters, and made her look like a cow with a saddle on her back, and she purposefully grew out her hair so she could have at least one thing underscore the fact that she was female. Boys asked her out, to be sure, but never the most handsome or most popular ones - and somehow she had managed to convince herself that it was because she was THAT GIRL, the quirky one who painted hieroglyphics into the soccer field at night - not because she was beautiful. And then, to be kissed by a boy who had caused such uncomfortable stirrings inside her - hang the fact that he was technically her brother…

In fact, it had to be a joke. Especially since he WAS her brother. Knowing him, it was right up his alley.

She looked up at him, and he was gazing curiously into her eyes, his fingers paused over a nipple. She felt another shock of pleasure course through her stomach to that odd spot between her legs, melting into wetness as a blush betrayed her feelings. Suddenly, she found herself thinking that when the elusive, transformation chance she'd spent her life chasing put a handsome man in your bed and made him look at you as if you were God's gift to humanity, you could do better than to ask questions. After all, had she not been through enough to be justified in indulging herself? Wasn't forgetting what she had been after all these hours? She had no way to know if he meant what he said, or if he was drunk. But weren't they each other's blood, and hadn't they gone through quite a bit together? If this ended up too inconvenient come morning, surely they would be able to talk it out.

… Which was some twisted logic there, wasn't it? Trying to justify letting more ridiculousness into your life because come morning you'll magically be able to handle it? How many drinks did you even have, you silly girl? And how long ago? How long does alcohol even take to wear off, anyway?

She resolved - for the moment - to keep her eyes firmly on Hikaru's face as she reached her arm out to the small of his back - the tight muscles making her catch her breath even as she imagined them - and slid a leg over his.

His lips spread skyward and he took her cue, shifting to contour his body against hers and running his hands with insistent urgency down her hips. She closed her eyes and let the gravity shift as her shoulder blades pressed into the mattress. His lips were on hers, and his kisses had grown sloppier, hungrier; his hands - how many hands did he HAVE, anyway? - were back on her shirt, and pushing upward. And his hips against her thigh - oh, dear - if there was anything less ambiguous… The tightness that had echoed and melted between her legs was back, yearning to be stroked away, and for a split-second her determination faltered.

No.

Destiny had smiled on her, and given her a chance to open the door to something new. Never mind that things were quickly turning too indecent for words. It was only Hikaru. The boy who baked cookies as sweet as himself. The Peter Pan and the practical joker. How many times had he already held her hand? And hugged her around the shoulders, and pressed his lips softly as if by accident against her cheek? From the moment he had first held her hand in the hospital bed, only to have his heart rate and blood pressure spike for all in the room to see, things had been heading down this road, and she had been too busy repressing her own indecent desires to notice.

To feel him breathing heavily against her, his irises two thin rims and his fingers threatening to leave their mark on her back and thighs come morning - it was all too obvious a conclusion of events. And it stirred things in her that were darker and more sweet than anything she had ever known before. Suddenly, the happiness rose in her blood again, and she felt like Carmen strutting down a stage - brazen, barefoot, rose in hand - and perfectly, uncaringly aware of the effect she had on men.

"Kaoru," she heard her brother whisper. "Tell me what you want me to do. Can I kiss them?"

Oh, yes. Yes, let's do this, Hikaru.

She smiled and raised her arms.

He swallowed visibly, a shiver stealing over his cheekbones and jaw. He pulled back, and pushed her shirt upward and over her head, the bra following quickly. She had to stifle another pained squeak, and fought the urge to cover up her lacking feminine physique as best she could. He seemed to have guessed her thoughts and caught her wrist with a smile.

"Ah-ah, Kaoru," he said. "Shame's not allowed in this room either. Besides, I think you're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. I - You're - lovely."

He looked unabashedly into her face, and let his eyes stroke down to the two hillocks of smooth white flesh before rising back up again. Kaoru faltered. Carmen was gone in a flash, and her skin grew enflamed against the air of the room as a stinging knot formed in the pit of her stomach.

"You look far better this way than in any dress."

He moved to nestle down beside her, and she saw his hand begin to reach for his belt out of the corner of her eye. Suddenly, she felt like the floor had disappeared from under her.

"Hikaru… Wait."

Her hand shot to his. He stopped short and raised his eyebrows.

"We're brother and sister," she said. "Maybe we should… Draw the line somewhere."

He looked back at her and was silent for a few moments. His chest rose and fell under the yellow light, and she saw the line of the cotton fuzz, illuminated brightly.

"Kaoru," he finally said, raising a hand to touch her chin. "Do you honestly only feel for me as you would for a brother?"

She shook her head, fixing her eyes on her knees.

"Well, I don't either. Biology's one thing but feelings are another. Whenever I'm with you, I feel like I'm home and I don't need anything else. So maybe tonight we can just try to be Hikaru and Kaoru, not brother and sister."

She remained silent, her hand clasped around his wrist, then slowly let go.

He smiled, sat back on his knees, and started to pull off his shirt. She watched him, her mind reeling from what had transpired as the tried to steady her breath. He did not just want her. He felt deeply for her. She shuddered to admit it, but it made her so happy she wanted to cry. Never mind if this was crazy, and fueled by liberal amounts of Johnnie Walker, and that they had been onetime cohabitants of a womb. She wanted it all; she'd handle it all, and oh, sweet mother of Jesus -

For a split second, she wondered, for the umpteenth time, how on earth he could have wanted her as the light fell upon the most unambiguous proof yet that he could have had anyone. But the thought was quickly muscled off a precipice. Her breath caught in her throat, betraying the warmth that was spreading between her legs.

Hikaru began to snicker.

"Well! Look at you. If I'd have known the effect it would have, I would've taken off my shirt sooner."

"Uh…" Kaoru struggled to force her voice through vocal cords suddenly engorged with blood rushing to her head.

"Maybe I should just stop wearing my shirt altogether."

"N-no, Hikaru…" she almost whimpered. "If you do that, I won't be able to function as a productive member of society."

He settled down next to her, and her pulse rose violently over every inch of her body.

"Kaoru as an unproductive member of society," he mused. "I think I'd like to see that." He was facing away from the lamp on the bedside table and his eyes looked like velvet. The gentle yellow light threw the muscles of his back into a relief that made Kaoru's throat go dry and her spine turn to water.

He cupped her breast and brought his lips to her nipple, and she almost bucked backwards. His tongue made her feel at once like she was being cut with an ice pick, and like an ache she had had forever was being coaxed into a voluptuous, full-bodied pleasure. She let her fingers sink into his hair and skim down his neck and back. Quite by accident, one of her nails scraped his skin as another ragged wave of electricity shook through her.

He broke contact and looked up.

"Oh, sorry -" she whispered. She was about to shrink away, but he smiled, planting a kiss on her breast.

"No, do that again. Harder."

She complied, and he arched his back against her hand. She was still afraid to touch him where she wanted - which was everywhere. But if his gaze was adoring before, as she traced designs into his back his flesh all but melted under her fingers, and the sounds he made made her wonder if women were misguided in offering themselves to men wholly when all they had to do was scratch their backs.

"Ahh, Kaoru," he caught her eye, gasping between waves of pleasure. "I really ought to reciprocate somehow. It's not fair that I'm the only one who gets to feel this good."

She paused, letting her fingertips hover over the whorl of baby hair between his shoulderblades. He shifted upwards, and draped his hand over her, scraping a fingernail down the middle of her back. The bemused expression on her face made him stop fairly quickly, however.

"Not doing it for you?" He smirked. "Okay, I guess I'm a freak of nature…"

"Yeah, I think we knew that already," she reparteed with a smile that showed off her dimple.

Hikaru returned the smile and bit his tongue. He was fairly sure it wasn't an appropriate setting to mention it, but he had always wondered if he liked his back scratched because Yuzuha had done it to him when he was little. He blinked a few times, quickly, to evict his mother from his mind and re-focus on the matter at hand.

"Okay. How about this instead?" He brought his lips back to hers and trailed them down her chin, then her neck, then between her breasts, pausing to kiss each one as if they were good friends already. Her thighs tightened as he got to the line of her underwear.

"D-down there?"

"Sure." He paused with his face hovering between her hips, and snapped at the elastic playfully. "Everything I've ever heard on the subject suggests that being kissed down there is supposed to feel really good."

But - but - but! - her mind screamed as she had to physically restrain herself from kicking him away - I've never taken my pants off around anyone! I've only ever had my pants off for any appreciable amount of time in the shower!

"It's okay, don't worry." He winked. "There's a first time for everything."

He began to kiss over her pants first, massaging gently between her legs, and, embarrassed though she was, suddenly her mind was far too occupied with the sensation to think of anything else. It was almost ticklish yet strangely satisfying, as if he was scratching an itch she did not know she had. The odd little button higher up tugged with more insistence than before, and when he brushed a finger against it she drew a breath that was almost a yelp.

"What do you say?" he asked after a minute, having watched her expression change from frightened to pleasantly incredulous, "Off-time?"

She nodded breathlessly.

"Okay, starting the revolution in 3, 2…" He slid both her pants and underwear down, threading her legs out of them, and in an instant she felt far warmer and far more charged with electricity than before. Her face, in all probability, turned red as a furnace. Hikaru's face snapped back up.

"Well! That answers that," he grinned with a show of mock nonchalance. "Looks like the basement is as rust-colored as the roof."

"HIKARU!" she gasped. But he was staring at her with such calf-like winsomeness she could not help but crack a smile. "I gotta say, though" - she laughed - "It can't be that big a revelation. You probably could've guessed it based on the look of your own, uh, basement."

"Well, yeah," he replied. "But who knows, we might look really similar, but our DNA is not EXACTLY identical - it can't be; we're different genders. So for all I know, you could've been blonde down there."

She was about to reply, but his smile had grown broader, and she gasped as she felt a finger slide up to where it was wet, her back arching against the pillows on its own accord. As the finger teased, suddenly every inch of her missed being enveloped by him, and the feeling echoed deep between her legs. And then the warmth of a mouth wrapped around her other lips, and a sigh broke from her lips as her fingers balled into the sheets. She closed her eyes and let the sensation vibrate through her, taut and tight and full like the lament of a violin string. It felt like a long and pleasant eternity before she felt a breeze downstairs and opened her eyes to find a Hikaru back up beside her, looking far less keen on joking around and far more set on devouring her with his eyes.

"Kaoru," he whispered. "I want you. Like that."

A violent shock bolted up her spine.

"But, Hikaru... I'm a -… I mean, I've never -"

"That's okay." He pulled her to closer and pressed his lips against hers. "Are you afraid it'll hurt?"

"No."

"Are you afraid it'll change things?" His eyes were big and smoldering. "It might, but it won't change us, at least not in a bad way. We'll still be Hikaru and Kaoru, and I know I'll still feel the same way."

He cradled her hands in his and began to kiss them, and her elbows sagged as her breath grew more regular. She leaned back against the pillows and parted her knees a bit, nodding and looking to the side as he reached for the closure of his pants and positioned himself between her thighs.

"I'll try and go slow; tell me if it's too much."

"Okay."

He began to kiss her lips and knead her breast with one hand, and then pushed in. He had not wanted to go quite so fast - and Kaoru's face spasmed. She squeezed her eyes shut, wrinkling her nose.

"Ouch," she said in a small voice.

His fingers dug into her shoulders. Her heart knocked against his ribs.

"Are you okay? I'm sorry…"

"Yeah," she whispered, barely above a breath. "Don't move, though. I need to get used to it for a second."

Don't move? It was a tall order. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on breathing as pleasure crashed over him like breakers, demanding to be ridden.

"You're brave," he said, pressing a kiss on each of her cheeks.

Gradually, her muscles began to unclench, and even as her face worked spasmodically he noticed for the first time how powder-soft her skin was. The part of him below the waist ached to charge on and take no prisoners, but the part above suddenly wanted to cry.

He was in more pleasure than he had ever been before, but what was he supposed to do, obey his instincts as she gritted her teeth and waited for it to be over? Only porn could make that kind of thing look fun.

"Kaoru… I'm sorry…"

She opened her eyes.

"This isn't fair at all… I'll stop."

Her eyebrows and lips were still twitching.

"No, Hikaru, don't…"

"This feels really good, but I can't keep hurting you. You don't like this at all. I can tell."

"No." She raised a hand to touch his cheek. "It's okay. Really. I'm sorry I don't know enough about pleasing you…"

"Pleasing me, Kaoru?" - he choked on a laugh - "You please me just by existing -"

"I want you to be happy. I didn't say anything before, but I feel the same way. When I'm with you, I don't need anything else."

It was all he could do to bury a sob in his words as he hugged her in a tighter embrace.

"Oh, God, Kaoru, you're an angel. I don't deserve you."

She smiled against his lips and pushed herself up on her elbows as she lay a hand on his hip.

"Go ahead. It hurts a little, but it doesn't feel wrong. I like being… filled up, and it felt plenty good before, when you… you know..."

Slowly, he began to move again. She quivered as before, and it was impossible to tell if her sighs were from pleasure or from pain, but as she reached to run her fingernails down his back, he knew he was done for.

"Oh… God… Kaoru" - the words shot from his lips between gasps - "I don't think this is going to last much longer… I'm sorry…"

Her breath stalled and she squeezed tighter against him.

"I'll come outside, alright? I don't want to get you in trouble -"

A spasm ran through him, as if he'd broken his back, and she suddenly felt very empty. A new warm wetness ran down her inner thigh. When she looked up, he was kneeling between her legs, breathing heavily, and she reached for the sheet to wipe herself, still not daring to look at the aftermath below her waist. It no longer hurt - it just felt numb, as did the rest of her, perhaps from shock. And that was just as well, because she could hardly bear how naked she felt, and how much she ached, down to the pit of her stomach, for him - and only him - to come and hold her. She felt her limbs grow overwhelmingly heavy as he settled back down and folded himself around her, pulling the covers over them both.

"Kaoru, do you want me to do anything else for you?…" She felt his fingers inch toward the crease of her thigh, and shook her head.

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

"Kaoru, I lo -"

She turned to him, and saw that his eyes were full. The breeze quivered over the top of the covers. Underneath, it was very warm, and it was hard to tell whose limbs were whose. He drew his fingers across her chin.

"I lost you once, Kaoru," he whispered. "I never want to lose you again."


	9. Bulletproof Logic

When Kaoru opened her eyes, her mouth felt like a desert.

Crap - so she had overdone it after all, assuming this was what a hangover felt like.

She rolled over with a groan and her eyes fell on Hikaru, sprawled across the bed shirtless and sound asleep.

Double Crap.

She reached down to feel between her thighs, but all she had to do was shift to feel her skin constricted by what remained of of congealed fluids hastily wiped off.

Triple crap.

She was just about to pull the covers over her head and curl into a ball when she felt pair of arms wrap around her and pull her into a clumsy hug.

"M-morning, my sweet redheaded angel," Hikaru mumbled sleepily, pressing his lips into her temple.

"Hikaru, no!" Kaoru's kneejerk response was to swat and flail as if she'd been electrocuted, and he shrunk away a might reluctantly, pulling the covers over his chin.

"Buyer's remorse?" He flashed a crooked smile. "I guess I should've known… You didn't enjoy it very much last night, did you? I knew I pushed you too hard, I'm sorry."

"No, no, no, Hikaru's, that's not it -"

Although she had not wanted to think about it, Hikaru had put one of her bigger fears to rest - that the previous night had been a drunken incident between friends, and that he would beat her to it and write it off as such. But now that that was out of the way, there were bigger fish to fry.

"It's just that - you can't be in here." Her voice sank to a strangled whisper. "If we're caught, we'll be in so much trouble…"

"Trouble? What time is it?" Hikaru furrowed his brow and peered over her at the alarm clock on the bedside table. "Ten fifty eight -"

"Oh my Goooood." The desire to bury her face in her knees and never face the world again was back in a flash, and this time Kaoru succumbed. "Toroko's due in two minutes…"

"Two minutes?"

"Yeah, she always comes by to check on me at eleven."

"So? Pretend you're asleep -"

"No, it doesn't work that way - it seems she's got orders to actually come IN if I don't answer…" Burying her face in her knees was not helping. Kaoru could feel the airways of her lungs collapsing and her throat seizing up. Hikaru put a hand on her shoulder and rubbed it back and forth.

"Hey… Hey-y-y…" He whispered, trying to buy time as his mind ranged desperately for a way to reassure her. But informing her that Toroko was technically HER maid and that she could change the "orders" at any time would not have done much good - and in any case, it was too late for that anyway.

Kaoru's head snapped up as quickly as she'd put it down.

"Okay." She took a quick breath, fixing her eyes straight ahead. "You. Closet. Now."

"Aye-aye, milady!" Hikaru bounded up and out of bed, tossing off a mock salute.

"And, Jesus, put some pants on!"

She buried her face in her hands as he spun around to face her.

"Hey!" He chuckled. "It's not like it's anything you haven't seen before - or interacted with."

"Yeah, ok, fine." Kaoru kept her eyes pointedly covered. "But strictly speaking it was dark, and I wasn't looking down - so pants, PLEASE. And a shirt while you're at it."

"Oh, alright then, but just so you know you're missing out -"

"Miss Kaoru?" - There was a knock on the door, and Kaoru felt her stomach plummet to the basement.

"Just a second, Toroko…" - she called. She didn't know where her voice had come from - half-stranged and battered as it sounded - but she was certainly glad it did. Quick as lightning, she wrapped a sheet around herself and jumped out of bed. Hikaru had not managed to pull any discrete garments from the wad of clothing by the bed, so she gestured at him to use as much as he could grab as a loincloth, and bodily pushed him into the closet. She then shoved what was left of last night's party under the bed, threw open a dresser drawer and pulled out the first clean clothes she could find.

When Toroko came in, she found a slightly ashen-looking Kaoru stripping the sheets from the bed.

"Miss Kaoru, is everything alright?"

"Y-yes…"

"What happened here?" Kaoru saw the maid's eyebrows twitch upward just a hair as she cast a slow look over the bed.

"I got that-time-of-the-month early," Kaoru replied, avoiding the young woman's eyes as she pulled at the fitted sheet and the mattress pad below, which had not escaped the carnage.

"Oh, well, you didn't have to - I could've done that for you." Toroko's speech was slower than normal as if a program was lagging on a computer, but her cool demeanor was back, smacking - as usual - of freshly folded towels and one-time-use French soaps. She crossed the room, picked up the wicker laundry hamper, and held it out to Kaoru, who placed the armful of sheets inside it.

Toroko smiled.

"Is there anything else you'd like me to take?"

"No, that's alright."

"Anything else you need?"

Kaoru shook her head, a little more vigorously than she intended.

The maid nodded again and smiled, her cheeks plump as apples, and gave a small bow. The laundry basket was still in her arms, and she was holding it almost ceremoniously, a few inches away from her body. As the door closed behind her, Kaoru breathed a sigh, thanking the powers that be that Toroko had spared her from an exhaustive list of lady products.

…

Having ascertained that the coast was clear and gone to the bathroom to down a glass of water, Kaoru let Hikaru out of the closet. He was hugging the armful of clothes in much the same way to hide his middle, and wearing a look more sheepish than before.

"Uh… do we need to talk about anything?" he asked uncertainly as she turned away and headed to the bed, now free of sheets.

Despite what had happened, Kaoru still found herself too ashamed to look at a shirtless Hikaru in the light of day. She averted her eyes and masked her feelings with a matter-of-fact smile as she sat down and set about folding the clothes that were not part of Hikaru's loincloth.

"Well, there's not much to talk about, is there?" she replied. "We both know that what happened, we both know we weren't thinking straight, so we can either forget about it and move on, or… forget about it or move on."

"I… don't want to forget about it and move on."

Kaoru looked up with a start to find that Hikaru had come to kneel beside her, his nudity safely covered up by a T-shirt and boxers.

"I like you, Kaoru. THAT way."

Kaoru froze with the flask in her hand - empty of Johnnie Walker.

"It wasn't just the alcohol last night" He nodded at the flask. "I really do. I have for a while. And I want to be with you - that way. In fact, I never want to let you go."

Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, this can't be happening - Kaoru thought desperately, suddenly regretting that there was no whisky left. Because the truth - the terrible, uncomfortable, jagged truth - was that despite the awkward fumbling and her crippling insecurity, the previous night had made her heart sing in ways she never imagined. It was next to impossible to believe that anyone could want her THAT way, or that the boy who'd made her feel the way she did was her brother. But although she had been afraid to admit it, what happened had filled a need she had never been able to name. Somehow it made so, so much sense that it had to be Hikaru - sweet, funny, charismatic, a little insecure - and the only person whose company never made her feel lonely. It made her chest feel full, and the fullness threatened to overflow from her eyes.

"Hikaru, are you on crack?" - she swallowed - "I'm your sister."

"Doesn't matter. You're still a girl I like. And incest's not illegal. Obviously, as much as I wish I could, I wouldn't advocate shoving our relationship in everybody's face and saying, 'hello, I'm dating my biological sister and our sex life is AWEsome,' but to the people who know us I'm sure it'll be alright. Some people even find taboo relationships really hot, and you can't hate what you find intriguing."

Kaoru stared at her brother, and he looked back with a self-satisfied doggedness as if he thought his logic was nothing short of bulletproof.

"But" - Kaoru rallied - "You've only met me… what, less than two weeks ago?"

"That's plenty long enough to form an opinion."

His tone was just as dogged, but, miraculously, it didn't seem like he was trying to pressure her to give an answer. In fact, he looked like he was waiting patiently, watching her with slightly downcast eyes. Suddenly, she felt alone and very cold, even though he was only a few feet away. Her skin missed his arms around her, and his lips - oh, God…. She felt a blush rise to her cheeks as a thrill rushed from the pit of her stomach to the roots of her hair. She put down the flask.

"O… kay. I guess we can see how it goes," she said slowly.

Hikaru leapt up to his feet and pulled her with him, fast as a firecracker.

"Oh, goodie!" he cried, "I knew you'd come around, Kaoru!" He spun her around by the arms, but - uncoordinated and somewhat dizzy as they were from their hangovers - they collapsed quickly on the bed with Hikaru on top. "Gawd, I'm the happiest guy alive!" He laughed. "In two weeks, I gained not only a sister but a girlfriend, and they're both beeeee-autiful!"

A good minute passed before Kaoru was able to free herself from Hikaru's lips, which seemed to be on every part of her face at once.

"Uh, Hikaru?" she asked, chuckling in spite of herself even as her head began to pound from the change in position. "Is anything going to change at all now that I'm your… girlfriend?"

"No, it doesn't have to." He smiled. "At least not much. The only thing that's different is now we're on the same page, and we can do all the fun cliche relationship things and not feel weird. AND I can do this." He kissed her lips, and she narrowly prevented an all-out French, quickly remembering that the previous night's revelry left her mouth stinking worse than a homeless man's. She pulled herself up as Hikaru slumped down to hug her around the torso.

"Ok, fair enough." She ran her fingers through his hair. "Last question, though… You didn't just ask me to be your girlfriend so you could have a repeat performance, did you?"

"No, of course not." Hikaru let go and sat up, the laughter gone from his face. "What kind of guy do you think I am, anyway?"

"I don't know… Like I said, we only met two weeks ago." She smiled with her half her mouth and got up. "But just so you know," she added, "While I don't regret last night, I think we should take it down a notch. Zero to sixty isn't normally my scene."

"Re-e-e-ally?" - he chuckled, stretching himself out on the bed - "Cuz, knowing you, I would've thought - "

"OH-KAY, this discussion's over" - Kaoru flicked a sock at him and turned on her heel. Truly - she thought - it was probably too much to expect for someone as… atypical as her to lose her virginity like most people did: in a love hotel, or even a normal hotel, preferably with someone who wasn't related to her. But paradoxically, the part she found most mind-boggling - and too shocking even for her - was that her first kiss and her first time happened in the space of the same hour.

She had closed the door of her ensuite bathroom, stripped off her clothes, and was just about to jump in the shower - toothbrush in hand as per old habit - when she heard the door creak behind her.

"HIKARU!" She pulled the shower curtain shut with a violent jingle of hoops.

"I'm sorry, Kaoru," Hikaru said in a solemn voice from across the curtain. "I just wanted to apologize and say that however fast or slow you want to take things is fine with me."

"Uh, yeah…" Kaoru scoffed. "Says the man who barged in on me in the bathroom."

"Well, I'm sorry about that too, but I felt my message was too important to wait - I'll be going now."

"Going?" Kaoru poked her head around the curtain, and her lips spread into a mischievous grin. She hadn't known what hit her. But heck, if she had a boyfriend now… "Don't go," she said in a soft voice, turning on the shower. "I caught a bit of a glimpse before, and if I recall correctly, you still need to wash off your red wings."

…

After Hikaru stepped into the shower, it took all of a few minutes for the suds and the steam to have done their work, and for the twins to become entwined in each other's arms again, lips locked and hands ranging hungrily under the hot, stinging needles. Before long, Hikaru had Kaoru against the wall, and she had to beg him not to go inside her because she was still sore. Instead, she squeezed him between her thighs and the ridge of her pelvic bone, and as he began to move the tight, eager little tongues of warmth started to spread again, lapping up her belly and down her thighs. Before she knew it, the licks were resonating so hard it made her fingers dig into his back, and she kissed him so hard their teeth clacked together.


	10. Type B

When Yuzuha was twenty-three, she learned she would never have children. The day she found out, she came home, lay down in bed and wept for a week. But life went on, and when she got up she decided that her first order of business was to tell her fiance, and to say that if he did not want to marry her anymore she'd understand. But Yuzuke Hitachiin - the shy, unassuming heir to a textile fortune - was just as in love as the day he met her. He said it didn't matter, and that spring they tied the knot as planned.

A year into the marriage Yuzuke advanced a proposal. Yuzuha had always had good taste, and had been making her own clothes since high school - imaginative designs, too, and takes on runway pieces almost better than the originals. He, for his part, never had much interest in the family business, preferring to make 3-D worlds out of pixels. He did not even have to finish his thought before Yuzuha's eyes began to shine. Serendipitously, she came from a family of information technology moguls, and the two of them quickly made a pact. Her parents would take Yuzuke under their wing and help him achieve his dreams. She, on the other hand, had ideas of how to make Hitachiin Silks - a company whose pedigree spanned centuries - into something even bigger.

Ten years later, Hitachiin Silk Concerns had become Hitachiin Designs, and Yuzuke could not have been more proud of his wife as she spent days and nights making luxury kimono, dresses, and scarves that were quickly stealing Hermes' share of the market. Yuzuha had become both a style icon and a designer - the very image of the modern empress. She also seemed to have forgotten her grief over her infetility. But as she poured more and more of herself into the company, she had also begun to dread the day she would be forced to give her baby up to someone whom she had not raised from two feet tall like she did the fashion house, and who was not hers like Hitachiin Designs was. Because that was the only option, wasn't it? To someday "adopt" some promising protegee. For a long time, she pushed the thought to the back of her mind.

On a monthly basis, Yuzuha met her friends - women her age who did much less and were married to men like her husband. At one such meeting of ladies who lunched and pretended to do charitable work while at it, there was a visitor - a young American woman named Suzannah who worked for the JET program. Suzannah had pulled out pictures of her family to show, and one of the ladies had expressed amazement: Suzannah's sister looked as white as she did, but her "daughters" were Chinese. Suzannah explained that the children were adopted - and that helping orphans find new families was her job. But the statement was met with blank stares from every corner of the table.

Several failed attempts to explain the concept later - even a dictionary had been pulled out, but to no avail - one of Yuzuha's college roommates finally clapped her hands and exclaimed,

"Oh, I get it!"

Ten permed and lacquered heads turned to the woman at once.

"I have two cats," she explained smilingly, "Momiji is a pedigreed Birman I bought from a breeder, and Momoko is a stray I started feeding and ended up taking in. Suzannah's nieces are like Momo-chan!"

It took all the generations of fine breeding behind Yuzuha's shoulders to keep her face from expressing the indignation she felt. To compare children to pets - that she could perhaps expect: most of her friends were vain, superficial women; it came part and parcel with their status. But who was to say that worthy souls, and even worthy blood, could not fall upon hard times, and end up "in the system," waiting forever for parents who would not come? And how would Sadako-chan like it if HER precious Momiji ended up at the pound - or, for that matter, if her precious seven-year-old Ritsuko and five-year-old Akira were turned out of their house and became wards of the state if something happened?

Suzannah had used the sudden burst of understanding to make her pitch to the ladies. She explained that the Japanese government did not encourage adoption and turned a blind eye to the problem - believing, perhaps, that children were best off with their biological parents even when those parents could do nothing for them.

The ladies remained skeptical, and by the end it felt like even Suzannah looked like she was just doing her job. But when the luncheon came to a close, Yuzuha pulled her aside and demanded to know more.

…

Yuzuha had type B blood, and everyone who learned this was surprised. She had always been a dutiful, hard-working girl, and could not have been expected to make history. Even as an adult, she could have only been described as "old-school," and her designs were the same way - rooted in tradition almost to a fault, except for the one daring detail that would shine all the brighter for it. And so when Yuzuha did something new, she always ended up leading by example. After all, if Yuzuha Hitachiin did it, of course she could be forgiven. She did everything else so perfectly and so by the book that if she took up writing fanfiction, how bad could it be? It might even be worth emulating.

Yuzuha's B personality emerged only rarely, most often when she came up with the daring details that her otherwise demure ways made easy to swallow. She never knew how exactly her crazy ideas came about - they just did, out of recesses of her mind she did not know existed, or - as was the case with Suzannah - out of nowhere at all. But when Yuzuha found something that intrigued her, she REALLY got into it. When she met with Suzannah on her own, she asked to be taken to the worst-ranking orphanage the latter knew of - one that exemplified all the systemic ills. Such an orphanage, in Suzannah's estimation, happened to be in a coastal town called Sasebo in Nagasaki prefecture**, and one fine weekend the two women found their way down there.

(**This is a reference that will probably escape everyone but me, but Sasebo is the sister city of Albuquerque, NM. Those who watch Breaking Bad and keep reading might find this circumstance hilarious. Or not.)

Once there, she asked the incredulous staff - who had never had a visitor bearing a Hitachiin purse and wearing Manolo Blahnik sandals - to bring her all the B-type children they had. Still, they complied with the eccentric lady's request, and in ten minutes about twice as many children of various ages were hustled into the superintendent's office. The superintendent - who liked to toe the party line, but not when large amounts of potential gift-money walked through his door - had just about finished introducing Yuzuha and hinting heavily that to the winner of her affections would go unimaginable spoils, when a young nurse spoke up from the knot of staff gathered to observe the proceedings.

"But what about Carrot Top?"

"Carrot top?" - someone asked.

"Yes, Carrot Top in infirmary 3 - is he still there?"

"Oh," replied a colleague of hers, "I didn't think it'd be worth it to bring him in. He's on his way out."

"On his way… out?" Yuzuha slowly turned to the woman who had spoken last. She turned out to be a tall girl with thick black hair in a ponytail, full lips, and a handsome high-bridged nose. She was dressed in a nurse's uniform, and stood like one used to wielding authority despite her age.

"He's not doing very well," the tall girl said, meeting Yuzuha's eye. "He hadn't been since he got here."

"And you thought this was a reason not to bring him."

The girl faltered, but caught herself halfway.

"Well, I thought ma'am would prefer a nice, pink, happy baby - not someone to bond with only to have it all end relatively quickly."

Yuzuha took a step toward the woman, and two sets of high cheek bones might have locked in a deadly duel if her chin jutted up any quicker.

"I want to see this Carrot Top," she said.

…

The strong-featured nurse led Yuzuha through hallways that had seen better days, dodging children who ran from room to room playing a sad indoor version of kick-the-can or whiling away boredom in corners. Suzannah followed at Mrs. Hitachiin's elbow.

"From what I can gather," Suzannah was saying in English per Yuzuha's request as she flipped through a file, "Carrot Top's got failure to thrive - a lot of the little ones do, actually. They don't like to admit it - that it's a lack of attention and technically their fault that the kids don't want to eat, so they blame it on a bad background…"

Yuzuha could see Suzannah was trying her best to keep her voice free of inflection for the benefit of the woman whose back they followed.

"Just out of curiosity, what IS his background?" - she asked without breaking stride.

"Oh…" Suzannah paused in her flipping and pressed her lips. They passed by a window, and a sun-fleck caught a querulous look in the younger woman's eye. "Are you sure you want to know?"

"I do. I won't let it influence my decision, don't worry."

"Well," said the younger woman, "It looks like he was rescued from some bad circumstances. Both his parents were known to authorities only by nicknames and involved in the drug trade - and his mother killed his father by breaking a stolen ATM over his head. Or at least that's what is says here - I'm not entirely sure how one steals an ATM. Or tips it over someone's head." **

(**Breaking Bad reference. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? MWAHAHAHA. Sorry. We now return to your regularly scheduled fanfic…)

Once again, Yuzuha had to draw upon every reserve to keep her composure.

…

Carrot Top was eight months old, but looked like he was half that age. His face was tied in a raw, permanent knot from crying, and he looked like a shell of bones even under swaddling clothes. And a carrot-top he definitely was, though his hair was more of a dull-auburn. The strong-featured infirmary head picked him up and handed him to Yuzuha, motioning her to support the head.

Yuzuha looked at the child and her first thought was that he was actually a very pretty baby. Even though his bone-shell sent a painful twinge through the chest, and the part of his face that didn't look like it had been scalded was yellowish and pale, he had a cute ski-jump nose and beautiful tiger-eyes. Indeed, his eyes had a much wider crease than she was used to seeing, and quite apart from their uncommon color they looked very intelligent and determined, and made her wish he could speak so he could tell her about all the places he'd been and all the things he'd seen. She found herself wondering if he was part foreign - in any case, she would never be able to sell him as her and Yuzuke's biological child. But never mind, she thought - all the better. She rocked him against her chest, and slowly his whines turned to mewls.

When Yuzuha looked up, she saw that the infirmary head was not alone - a nurse assistant emerged from a side-room to join her overseer. This one was a very young girl with the reddish hair-streaks of a newly minted highschool graduate. Both women's mouths hung unabashedly open, and the younger one recovered first.

"I'm s-sorry," she stuttered with a sheepish half-bow and a quiver in her voice,"It's just that… He hasn't stopped fussing since he GOT here."

"Quick, bottle - now!" the Head barked without turning - to the extent that it was possible to bark orders in a low voice, as she seemed afraid to break the sudden silence. Her eyes stayed fixed on Carrot Top with as much incredulity as if he had sprouted two heads.

Before a minute had passed, Yuzuha found a baby bottle in her hand, and brought it tentatively to the child's mouth. He reached his hands up and flailed them, and with a soft coo his mouth closed around the nipple. Yuzuha noticed that his fingers were nearly translucent, and might have fit comfortably around one of hers.

"What's his real name?" she asked after a few moments, looking up at the head nurse when she felt comfortable enough to hold the child without worrying her hands would disobey her.

The woman suddenly looked uncharacteristically timorous, and glanced at her toes.

"Well, that's the thing, ma'am - we don't really know," she answered. "We really do just call him Ninjin*."

(*"carrot" in Japanese.)

"It's true." Susannah nodded, materializing back at Yuzuha's side, file in hand. "It says 'Ninjin.' He never had a proper birth certificate, it seems…"

"You named a CHILD 'Carrot'?!" Yuzuha's shot a look of acid at the head nurse, her nerves finally failing.

"They do that to a lot of the foundlings," Suzannah said quietly in English. "And his last name's apparently 'Unknown' " - she added in Japanese.

"Well, not anymore," Yuzuha declared stiffly. "Goodness me, I can't BELIEVE these people" - she turned to the baby and sniffed with a smile - "Can you?"

…

Once the adoption went through, Yuzuha took up doing much of her work from home so she could be with her little boy and feed him, as much as possible, with her own hands. Yuzuke watched his wife and fell in love with her more by the day. Although she got up in the middle of the night as often as the next mother, she seemed to have dropped ten years in a day, and was never not smiling. And what was more, seeing how happy the child made her stirred paternal feelings in him as well. Before long they had agreed to name the baby Hikaru, after the ray of sunshine he had brought into their life. With proper care, Hikaru caught up quickly with his peers in growth and development, and turned into the plump, happy baby that the head nurse was convinced Yuzuha had wanted.

For many months, Yuzuha took Hikaru with her everywhere. He even attended his first directors' meeting for Hitachiin Group before he was one year old. At the time, Yuzuha was still working from home, so that particular meeting was scheduled to take place in the Hitachiins' study on a Thursday evening. The executives were in full assembly when Yuzuha appeared, notebook in one hand and baby in the other. She had come in, nonchalant as ever, sat down at the head of the table, handed the notebook to her secretary, extracted a bottle from her pocket, and said, "Now then, let's get started." And when Hikaru finished his dinner and dropped off to sleep, they saw her place him in a basket at her foot made ready just for that purpose. The next morning, Yuzuha's literal balancing act between career and motherhood was on the tip of everybody's tongue in Tokyo's wealthiest households.

Fifteen years later, Yuzuha was sitting in the same room, at the head of the same table, and cutting open her correspondence with a souvenir letter-opener shaped like a dagger. Her husband turned away from the bay window and looked at her. She wore an olive-green morning robe with a brushed pink collar, and the sight of the silk against her neck made him feel just as he did twenty five years ago.

"You know" - she mused with a smile, her eyes fixed on the crease of the envelope as she sliced it open - "I can't tell you how happy I am that the twins are getting along. It's funny, but I've never seen Hikaru so passionate about anything. All I hear from him these days is Kaoru, Kaoru, Kaoru…"

"Yes, it seems that way, doesn't it?" Her husband came to stand behind her. "My only hope, for both their sakes, is that Hikaru isn't just obsessed with her because she's some new toy that looks just like him."

"I don't think that's the case. I've done some reading on this, and it makes perfect sense."

"Hah, where did YOU find time to do some reading?" Yuzuke chuckled, letting his face hover over her shoulder as he pretended to peer at the letters.

"When it comes to my children, I always have time," Yuzuha replied placidly, putting the letter aside and picking up another. "Twins are used to having someone next to them in the womb, and they feel strange if that presence is taken away. Honestly, it could explain Hikaru's restlessness over the years, and the fact that he hasn't been nearly as moody anymore now that Kaoru's been found…"

"Well, let's hope Kaoru ends up being a good for him, and helps him wise up a bit. It's about time, if you ask me" - Yuzuke smiled and bowed to press a kiss into his wife's neck, but they were interrupted by a knock on the door.

"Yes, come in," Yuzuha called.

The door opened to reveal Toroko, her usual smile - a subtle luxury item - playing on her lips. She had a basket in her hand and approached the table slowly as Yuzuha motioned her in.

"Yes, Toroko? What is it?" she asked.

The maid glanced at Yuzuke, and her eyes betrayed the tiniest bit of uncertainty. The man's hands were folded over the back of Yuzuha's chair, and his knuckle just brushed the curve of her shoulder.

"There's something I wanted to show you, ma'am, but I'd rather it be… just you," she said.

"Oh. Why is that?" Yuzuha put down the letter opener.

"It's a bit of a sensitive issue."

Yuzuha nodded at her husband, who acquiesced with a civil smile and withdrew. Once the women were alone, Toroko placed the basket on the table and gave it a push.

"It's Miss Kaoru's. I found her taking it off her bed this morning."

Yuzuha drew the basket toward her, extracted a crumpled sheet, and it did not take much turning over for her eyes to find the dark stain. Her fingers stopped abruptly, and she squinted, blinking visibly a few times. She tugged the sheet back and forth, inspecting the texture of another dry fluid that was not blood.

"She seemed really nervous," added the maid. "And then, about fifteen minutes later," she bit her lip, "I'm sorry to have to say this, but I happened to be coming up the stairs just down the hall, and I saw Mr. Hikaru come out of Miss Kaoru's room – with damp hair."

Yuzuha swallowed, raising her eyes.

"How did you… How did you know it was Hikaru?"

"I don't think Miss Kaoru would wear the same clothes her brother wore hiking the day before, ma'am."


	11. Good News and Bad News

_This one's for Tara - a very special chapter for a very special birthday girl. Hope you have a great day!_

_..._

"Yuzuke, where did we go wro-o-o-o-o-ng?!"

Yuzuha had dismissed the maid and was slumped over the table with her face clamped in her hands. The basket still stood before her, a silent witness to the proceedings.

"We didn't go wrong anywhere, Yuzuha."

It had been a long time since Yuzuha had needed her husband. Indeed, if for some reason they had chosen to get divorced before that day, she might have moved on just fine given the proper mourning period. But as she watched the door shut behind Toroko, she felt every bit the incompetent college girl once again, whose life had magically changed for the better the day she found a boyfriend to help with such challenging life-tasks as navigating Narita airport and talking to school administrators, and who held her hand when her otherwise carefully concealed B-type hot-headedness got the upper hand.

"Are we… bad parents?" Yuzuha looked up at her husband. Her eyes were not red, but they may as well have been, and her lip was doing something he had not seen it do in years - it quivered.

"No, we are not bad parents." Yuzuke pulled up a chair, fixing his eyes on her profile as she buried her face in her hands again. Good-good, at least she's not throwing things - he thought, recalling a fateful evening when they were 21 and she finished what he'd thought was a perfectly civil conversation with her mother, only to hurl the phone so hard against the wall it shattered both itself and the paneling. Goodness knew, HE certainly died a little inside when he heard the news about the twins, but right then his wife's sanity was his first priority.

"I'm just - I'm just at a loss," Yuzuha said to the table. "I guess this is what I get for being naive enough to hope that if you never talk about it, it'll never happen…"

"No, I don't think that's it - I really think this goes beyond The Talk…"

"Well, alright. Fine. But - what do you even do in such a situation? I mean, what would YOU do?"

"Well. My first thought would be to find an expert on birth defects and try to scare them out of it. I'd also institute a strict open-door policy and curfew with room-checks. But for the moment I think we should triage feelings. After all, we don't know what led to it. We don't want to assume things."

Yuzuha had straightened up and was looking at her husband, who by then had focused his eyes on something outside the window. She glanced back at the laundry basket with a sigh.

"You can talk to Kaoru," Yuzuke said, "And I can talk to Hikaru. That would probably be easiest."

"But I don't even know how to begin talking to a girl about something like this. I would think she needs her mother right now more than anything…"

"Well, her mother is unavailable, so you're the next best thing." Yuzuke reached out to his wife's neck and swept back some hair that had fallen from her bun. "For what it's worth, I think you're better suited to the job than you realize."

…

"Kaoru, please sit."

It was shortly after lunchtime, and Hikaru's father had spirited him away to play golf when Yuzuha had smiled at Kaoru and invited her to come finish their tea in her study, as she had a lot of work to do but wanted to talk anyway. Yuzuha had been her usual unruffled self as she said so - and even her necklace against her plain dress, the world's smallest dragon-horde of cut crystal, seemed to stress the fact that nothing was out of the ordinary. But when Kaoru obeyed and followed her, she still felt her legs turn to water.

The maid arranged the tea on Yuzuha's desk and vanished, and the woman motioned Kaoru, who still stood stiff as a soldier, to take a seat in the armchair across the way.

"Kaoru, you seem nervous. Don't worry - you're not in trouble," Yuzuha began. It seemed all her attempts to normalize the situation had been futile, as Kaoru's knees were visibly shaking under her skirt. "That said" - she added after a pause - "When certain things occur in my house, I tend to be made aware of them, so I know what happened between you and Hikaru last night."

"I - I'm really, really sorry, Mrs. Hitachiin…" Kaoru's voice quivered, and her shoulders slumped forward as if she was bracing to be beaten within an inch of her life with the nearest decorative bamboo rod.

Yuzuha sighed.

"Like I said, you're NOT in trouble. I just wanted to hear your side of it." She pushed a cup of tea toward Kaoru, who made no move to take it. "There's probably a lot going through your head right now - there always is when something like this happens, and that's perfectly normal. I just wanted to make sure you're okay. And if you're not, I care about you, so that's something I need to know."

"I'm okay."

Yuzuha stifled an exasperated sigh but rallied quickly, adjusting the gems on her chest. Teenagers were skittish sometimes, no bones about it. It was worse than stalking a baby deer.

"No, Kaoru," she said. "You're not okay - I can see it. And in makes sense. In the space of two weeks, you lost your parents, you left your home, you met a brother you never knew you had, and you were forced to confront your adoption in a whole new way. That's a lot for anyone to handle. And my concern" - she paused - "Is that you've taken a step in the heat of the moment hoping it would solve something, or that it would help you deal with something."

Kaoru remained silent. By now, she was using her hands to steady her knees, and if Yuzuha were to have seen a puddle growing beneath her, she would not have been surprised. Suddenly, she felt like her innards were being pulled down, and all she wanted to do was come around the desk and hug the girl, to hold her and call her daughter, and to melt that sad, put-upon little heart of hers. But instead she got up and walked to the bookshelf, pretending to look at the titles as she watched Kaoru from the corner of her eye. The girl was biting her lip, and was not blinking.

"Mrs. Hitachiin," she finally said, her collar-bones rising and falling between words. "I appreciate what you're trying to do, but you're not my mother."

Yuzuha turned around and came back over, pulling up a chair. Kaoru was sitting just as stiffly, but now all her tension was concentrated on picking her cuticles, and her face looked like she had a stomach ache and was being kept away from the bathroom.

"No, you're right," Yuzuha said. "I'm NOT your mother. But that doesn't mean it's not my place to be concerned. I was fifteen too once" - She tried to catch Kaoru's eyes - "In fact, when I was fifteen, I got involved with one of my father's business associates. There were problems at home, I was going through a lot of things I couldn't understand, and I just wanted to feel loved. That's why I wanted to talk to you. Obviously, it's not the same exact situation, but I still want to understand."

Yuzuha waited, and about half a minute passed with the wall of books gazing down before Kaoru nodded.

"Okay."

"Okay" - Yuzuha allowed herself a small smile, and took Kaoru's teacup from the table, offering it to her again. "Let's start with Hikaru. Obviously, what's done is done, but have you talked about where the two of you stand at all?"

"Yes, we have."

Yuzuha turned her head just a bit and gave a smile - very controlled - to indicate interest.

"He asked me to be - Well, he admitted that his feelings were more than brotherly. And that he wanted to be… together in-that-way from now on."

"Was this before or after?"

"After."

"And how do you feel about him?"

Kaoru paused in picking her nails and looked up. Her eyes paused over Yuzuha's face and traveled to the tall grandfather clock in the corner, a complex system of counterweights moving behind a pane of glass as the pendulum swung.

"I don't know. I feel… different with him. Sometimes I feel like he's just a silly little boy. But sometimes I think that if he took the next step without me, I don't know what I'd do."

"Kaoru," said Yuzuha, taking a slow breath, "You do understand there might be problems with this going forward."

The least of which, she could not help thinking, was that Hikaru had never had a girlfriend of any kind before then - at least not that she knew of. Supposing, even, that it meant something, the way Kaoru straightened up and looked more brave as she pieced her feelings for Hikaru into words. Supposing, even, that Yuzuha would be right to trust their feelings to be as pure and well-intentioned as those of fifteen-year-olds could be. Still, a sibling was not someone you could part ways with if love went wrong. And all told, they really were only fifteen, an age when love was like russian roulette: you could get lucky and sail through to happily ever after, or you might think you are in love, and get the bullet.

"Yes, I understand," said Kaoru.

"All I ask you to consider is that you and Hikaru met - and developed feelings for each other - under some tough circumstances. Like soldiers in a war, who come to trust each other absolutely in a very short time. But things may change when everything settles down. Other considerations will come to light, and then it might not be so easy any more."

Yuzuha paused and looked at the girl, hoping she would not have to elaborate further. At any rate, Kaoru probably knew what she meant already, and she did not want to insult her.

"I understand that too, Mrs. Hitachiin," Kaoru said. She straightened her skirt over her knees. "But I think I can figure it out."

"Alright, Kaoru. I'll trust you on that one - but if anything comes up, my door is always open." Yuzuha took up the tea cup, which Kaoru had not touched, and placed it back on the tray. "Before I let you go, though, do you remember when your last time-of-the-month was?"

Kaoru had gotten up halfway, but plopped right back down like a heap of sticks.

"My time of the month?"

Yuzuha raised her eyebrows - not too far, she hoped, but just far enough. Kaoru's cheeks grew bright pink as if slapped, and she suddenly looked like she was apologizing with every part of her body for the mere fact of her existence.

"Well, Mrs. Hitachiin, I'm not sure how to say this, but… I've never had a time-of-the-month."

It was Yuzuha's turn to sink a little lower in her chair.

"Never? Not once?"

"No, never."

"Well, that's -" Yuzuha paused, noticing that Kaoru looked like she had been sliced with a machete - "Not entirely atypical. From what I know, it's perfectly possible to get your first period any time between ages 9 and 15."

"Well, I guess time's running out for me, isn't it?" Kaoru's mouth shifted into a broken smile. "I'll be 16 in two months."

"Have you ever talked to a doctor about it?"

Kaoru shook her head. "No, I never had much cause to go see a doctor, aside from school physicals. I've always been pretty healthy."

"Well," said Yuzuha, taking a sip of tea to buy herself a moment. "In that case, things might be a little more complicated - because you technically don't know you've had your first cycle until it's over. So maybe this is something we need to get checked out sooner rather than later. I'll see if my doctor is available today."

…

The fact that Yuzuha was not able to have children did not stop her from having a gynecologist on retainer, and this gynecologist's name was Dr. Mikuru Asahina**. She looked to be about 30, was impeccably dressed, and had hands like petals that Kaoru thought belonged on a magazine cover modeling watches and jewelry. Her peach-colored hair was long and hung forward, and seemed to be that of a much younger woman. And yet - much to Kaoru's chagrin - the first thing she noticed - indeed, could not help noticing - was that Dr. Asahina had one of the biggest bosoms she had ever seen. And even though said bosom was hidden under a demure, powder-blue button-up, it still added insult to injury. It took quite a bit of effort for Kaoru to feel like she was speaking to Dr. Asahina and not to her breasts.

(**I still solemnly swear this is not a crossover fic. I borrowed nothing from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya aside from Mikuru's name and appearance. Okay, and maybe parts of her demeanor. But she's not a time-traveler. She really is a doctor, scout's honor.)

Yuzuha and Dr. Asahina seemed to be on nearly first-name terms, and the latter nodded and listened carefully to the story without so much as an eyebrow twitch. More than that, although Dr. Asahina was more than twice her age, once Kaoru got comfortable enough to forget about the bosom she began to feel like she was talking to a friend - the shy, sweet type who liked butterflies, tea, and dressing up in victorian Lolita costumes. It did not even matter that her questions were laden with terminology as blunt and clinical as "vaginal," "oral," and "menstruation." Indeed, even the word "sex" was used liberally and unabashedly, and while on the lips of anyone else it might have made Kaoru squirm, in the end she found that as long as she avoided looking at Yuzuha, the questions did not feel so bad. In truth, it was almost a relief not to have to tiptoe around the matter, and Dr. Asahina was very good at her job - so good, in fact, that she did not seem like a doctor at all, but a waitress serving cakes as fluffy and soft as she was.

Thankfully, it also never came up who exactly Kaoru had sex with, and Yuzuha seemed to have decided to spare the news until it became clear it might be relevant. Dr. Asahina posed a few more questions, mostly about Kaoru's past, then ordered a blood draw, and finally asked if it would be alright if she performed a pelvic exam. And that was how, for the second time in twenty-four hours, Kaoru ended up on her back with her legs spread - this time on a cold pleather table, her feet in some incongruous stirrups, and a sheet draped mercifully over her middle.

"Don't worry - this shouldn't hurt," Dr. Asahina said in her dewy voice as she pulled on some latex gloves with a snap. "But if it does, let me know, and we can stop at any time."

And yet, Kaoru still ended up stifling a gasp and squeezing her eyes shut as the woman slid two fingers where Hikaru had been. If the previous night was not evidence enough that she was open for business, this certainly sealed the deal, and Kaoru found herself wishing she could run away like never before.

"Are you okay?" Dr. Asahina's other hand was on top of Kaoru's belly between her hips, and her hair smelled like a flowers.

Kaoru nodded.

"I'm just checking to see that everything's normal and healthy... How does that feel?"

"Uh - a little uncomfortable. But it doesn't hurt."

"Okay, that's normal. You use muscles you're not used to using the first time you have sex, and your insides get moved around in new ways. It should go away soon."

Kaoru nodded and tried to focus on counting the holes in the textured ceiling. The ceiling was made up of square tiles, but how many holes did each square have?

"So you said you've never had one of these checkups before - just sports physicals? What sport do you play?"

"Basketball."

"Oh, fun. How long have you been playing?"

Kaoru still felt very small, and desperately wished Hikaru could be there to hold her hand, as embarrassing and ladies-only a situation as this was.

"Since I was eight or so."

"So it seems like it's something you enjoy."

Dr. Asahina's hand was still applying firm pressure, but all Kaoru felt was a dull pulling. And the doctor's face still had a fresh, girlish smile, as if Kaoru was a friend's pretty child she admiring. Kaoru shifted her attention from the holes in the ceiling to the constellation of beauty marks in front of Dr. Asahina's ear.

"I do, I guess," Kaoru replied. A lock of Dr. Asahina's hair fell into Kaoru's line of vision. "When I get into the game, I feel like I can just be and forget everything else. That feels great. And all the girls are tall…" She gave a half-chuckle. "I feel like I belong."

"Have you always been pretty tall?"

A-and, there it was again. Kaoru stifled a wince as her eyes shot back to the ceiling.

"Yeah."

In fact, she had always been the tallest girl in her class - and taller than ninety percent of the boys. She was so tall that some girls' departments did not carry her size in shoes or clothing, and normal uniform skirts made her look borderline indecent. For a number of years, her height had been a source of crippling self-consciousness and a burgeoning scoliosis. But then middle school came around, and one day Kaoru decided that the best way to deal with insecurity was to meet it head-on, and to do the exact opposite of what it told her. That was when she began to dress in outlandish styles, wear boy-clothes, and act more and more on impulse. But that did not mean the insecurity WENT anywhere. All she managed to do was to chase it into a corner.

"Well, it seems to have worked out for you." Dr. Asahina smiled, and Kaoru felt the pressure release and the fingers slide out of her. She almost breathed a sigh - until a breeze on her privates took her right back to feeling like she'd been dragged to the gallows to be publicly "examined," and then to be hung, drawn, and quartered.

"Alright, that's done," Dr. Asahina said. "Thank you for being so patient, Kaoru. I know it's not easy the first time around."

She turned away and when Kaoru saw her again, she had a clear, duck-billed object in her hand whose purpose she did not want to divine.

"Now for the last part. I'm just going to use this to take a look at a structure called the cervix, which is at the bottom of your uterus. I'll also take a sample, and this shouldn't hurt either."

She sat down at a stool between Kaoru's legs and disappeared from view. Suddenly, Kaoru found herself missing the way the electric light slanted through Dr. Asahina's hair and melted into her skin, so soft and freshly powdered. As a piece of hard, jelly-covered plastic slid where her fingers had been, Kaoru made a small, pained noise. She tried hard to remember which dent in the ceiling she had left off on, and realized she wanted Hikaru back, to hold her and hug her, even more than before.

…

"Well, the good news is, we don't have to worry about pregnancy or STI's at the moment," said Dr. Asahina, her warm almond eyes scanning the printout in front of her. It was an hour and a half later**, and Kaoru was back to being dressed and balancing on the edge of a chair. Yuzuha sat beside her, knees and ankles together, and her face melted from polite Noh-mask to its usual, milk-and-honey self as Dr. Asahina pronounced the verdict.

(**Gratuitous note that the author feels professionally obligated to make: for the record, there is no way on God's green earth you'll get test results that quickly in a non-emergency setting on a weekend. But for the sake of moving the plot along let's just pretend super rich people have super high priority.)

"The other news," the doctor continued, "Is that I think I have an answer as to why you have not had your first period."

Kaoru sat up a little straighter.

"I've taken a look at your hormones, and while this is not a health problem per se, it looks like you have an condition that prevents you from converting one hormone - testosterone - into its more active form, DHT."

"Oh… O…kay..."

Testosterone? - thought Kaoru, beginning to feel sick. It seemed she had more than her share of that stuff anyway. She slumped her shoulders and brought them closer together.

"The thing is," Dr. Asahina continued, "DHT is really important during development. The female program for external genitalia is the default. If you've got a Y chromosome, DHT changes it to develop along male lines. And during puberty, DHT is what causes your voice to deepen and your muscles to get bigger. In your case, your testosterone is high - basically what it should be for a boy your age - while your DHT is nonexistent. Which led me to take order a test called a karyotype - that's your chromosomes, all in a line…"

She took a sheet of paper from her stack, and slid it toward Kaoru, who was growing paler by the second. The last two chromosomes in the series were a large and a small one, with the letters X and Y above.

"You were supposed to be a boy, Kaoru. But because of your DHT levels, it didn't work out. That means you have a vagina, but no uterus - in fact, I didn't find one on exam. And your ovaries are actually testes that never descended."

Kaoru began to hyperventilate.

Everything had fallen terribly, irreversibly into place, like a lock clanging shut. The reason she had never felt like a full-fledged girl, no matter how hard she tried, was because she wasn't one. She saw the faces of everyone she ever knew flash before her eyes, and they were all laughing at her. If before she feared that Yuzuha was going to beat her with a decorative bamboo rod, now she wished that someone would.

"Kaoru, here," said Dr. Asahina, her voice cutting through the fog that had begun to stop up the girl's eyes and ears. "Give me your hands."

Kaoru obeyed and held them out. Dr. Asahina took them in hers, but Kaoru could hardly feel them, except that they were soft and warm.

"I want you to breathe out. Just out, okay? I'll count to three, and you breathe out."

Kaoru tried her best, but for a few seconds it did not seem to be working. She felt like she was getting wrapped up a big, thick mattress, and - what do you know - someone WAS hitting her with what felt like a metal rod, though the mattress blunted the impact. She struggled to breathe out like the beautiful doctor said, but the only effect was to make the already thin scaffold of her shoulders buckle. Kaoru heard a strangled sob that she assumed to be hers, and her arms drooped and hung limply from Dr. Asahina's hands.

Yuzuha put a hand on Kaoru's shoulder and Kaoru let go, slumping back into the chair.

"Are you okay, Kaoru?" Dr. Asahina asked.

"Yeah… I am… But… I don't want to be a boy," Kaoru heard her voice coming from very far away.

The lines between the tiles on the floor were coming back into being, and Kaoru tried to fix her eyes on one of them and follow it. Her breaths were growing slower, but her entire neck felt brittle, and her back was hurting between the shoulders where it felt like someone had been hitting her during the panic attack.

"Well, strictly speaking, you are not a boy," she heard Dr. Asahina's voice float, mellow and sweet, from somewhere up above. "Your condition is better described as inter-sex - which means you have physical characteristics from both sexes."

"So I'm neither?"

"Well, no, that's not quite it…"

Dr. Asahina bit her lip and pretended to moisten it, her mind feverishly rewinding back to her training a decade ago. Admittedly, this was her first time dealing with someone with gender identity issues, and while someone, sometime, might have mentioned something about this, years of delivering babies and performing PAP smears had put her quite out of practice when it came to anything else.

"What you are biologically is not the be-all and end-all," she said tentatively. "Biological sex is one thing, but gender is a social contrast. There are actually lots of inter-sex people, though most of them tend to align themselves with one gender or the other. And there are lots of options to help with that. Let me ask you this - how have you felt about living as a girl so far?"

Kaoru was still looking at the floor, following the cracks between the tiles, and paused at a crossing.

"I guess… I guess I was okay with it." She paused. "I mean, I AM okay with it. I always felt kind of bad that I fell short of what a girl should be - I mean, I'm not small and cute, and I don't look all that feminine. I tried to blame it on maybe not being 100% Japanese, but I guess all I ever really felt was - lacking."

"I see. Well, sometimes people feel like they were born in the wrong body, or that their body does not reflect who they are. Have you felt like that at all?"

Kaoru pondered for a moment.

"No, I don't think so," she said. "I've felt frustrated with my body, but I'm pretty sure it's always suited who I was." Indeed, personality-wise she had always been willowy and a little brittle. "I never thought I would be better off as a boy."

Kaoru let her thoughts meander back to a time in seventh grade when she had purchased a boys' uniform blazer and chinos to wear to school. In truth, she had gotten the idea from reading a magazine about Yves Saint Laurent, and how he had introduced the smoking jacket for women. "The more ingrained our idea is that something is for men," Yves Saint Laurent was quoted in saying, "The sexier it looks on a woman." Kaoru, thirteen at the time, thought this would be her saving grace when the rest of the girls were gossiping about bras and periods, even as she only grew inexorably taller and remained as brick-like as ever. And when she had come home and tried on her new boys' blazer, she really did think she looked quite fetching in it - especially with her hair in a high ponytail like a tough biker girl. But incorporating the blazer permanently into her wardrobe proved an uphill battle. She would wear it on days when she felt particularly bad about her hips and shoulders, but the looks she got about half the time would send the ensemble straight back to the closet.

Dr. Asahina looked Kaoru up and down. The girl was still staring at the floor and cowering like a lanky, newly-born giraffe, and the doctor did her best to imagine what it might have been like for her. Even as she cowered, Kaoru looked graceful, her bones sharp angles pulled into an artful tent. Had she been groomed properly, she might have had it in her to be a model or an actress, and Mikuru found it hard to believe that things would end up altogether pear-shaped for her, whatever gender she chose to be.

"Well, you know, if that's the case and you are comfortable being a girl," she said, "I don't think this needs to change things much -"

"You don't think this this needs to change things?" Kaoru's head snapped up so quickly Dr. Asahina started. " But… But what if I - I mean, what if I met someone I'd want to… What am I supposed to say? 'Sorry, honey, I can't have children because I sort of look like a woman, but I'm actually a man?' How that even supposed to work - "

"Well, yes, that is a concern." Dr. Asahina glanced at Yuzuha, who seemed to have been concentrating solely on breathing the entire time, her Noh-mask back over her features. "But there are many women who cannot have children for a variety of reasons. This does not make them any less women."

Kaoru sighed. No less women. Alright. But that did not change the fact that all her life she had felt like a fraud, and now her identity as such had been signed, sealed, and delivered. A deficient girl who wasn't a boy only because that was the one thing she had not tried, had never even know how to think about - except for that silly blazer. It wasn't even about children, even though that was the first thing that came to mind. Yuzuha could not have children, that much was clear, but Kaoru was hard-pressed to believe she had a Y-chromosome. And truth be told, Kaoru wasn't sure if she even WANTED to have children. Considering the track record lately, she could not even be sure what tomorrow would bring. At any rate, if - IF - somehow things worked out and she ended up riding with Hikaru into the sunset, having biological children would be unadvisable anyway.

No, that was definitely not it. She looked down at her belly, where Dr. Asahina described her testicles as having lodged around an empty space where a uterus should have been. Dr. Asahina was wrong. Practically speaking, yes, Kaoru might go on living the way she had, and no one would be the wiser. But it wasn't true that the day's news had changed nothing. No one else had to know. Of course they didn't. But knowing, even if it was just her, still changed everything and made her want to vomit, rip her stomach open, and scoop out the testicles with her bare hands.

"How did I even get this?" she asked asked after a long silence.

"Well, it's a recessive condition," replied Dr. Asahina, her voice back to its chipper mellifluousness as if she were relieved to be speaking on strictly medical themes again. "You need two altered copies. You can either inherit both, or inherit one, and have a mutation change the other. In the second case, it would have to happen pretty soon after conception, though…"

She paused, looking more carefully at Kaoru's face. The girl had started to look sullen again, and had pulled away away from her arm-rest where Yuzuha's hand had come to hover over hers.

Yuzuha cleared her throat. "Um, so does this affect? - "

"Well, correct me if I'm wrong" - the doctor glanced back at Yuzuha - "But it seems Kaoru looks a LOT like her brother, doesn't she?" Dr. Asahina had not had much cause to see Hikaru in person, but Yuzuha had shown her plenty of pictures. Indeed, when she first met Kaoru she had to suppress a gasp at the resemblance.

"They've got the exact same face," Yuzuha affirmed.

"Yeah." Kaoru's lips curled into a dour smile. "He looks exactly like I would if I ate more protein and spent more time at the gym."

"Well, in that case, he probably just has the one gene and it doesn't affect him at all. But my thought is, it would be pretty atypical if you two were different sexes and had the exact same face," said Dr. Asahina. "Different sexes would make you fraternal, and you'd look only as similar as the average set of siblings. But given what we now know, you are probably identical twins. You both inherited one altered copy, and Kaoru's DNA took a second hit shortly after."

…

"How did it go?" Yuzuke asked with an almost too-deliberate air of nonchalance, shutting the french door that separated Yuzuha's office from her boudoir.

"Well, there's good news and bad news," said Yuzuha, looking up from her laptop. She had changed from her black dress into a silk wraparound house coat, and was half-lounging on a settee by the bed as she worked, her face grayer than before. "The good news is, Kaoru's probably not going to let Hikaru anywhere near her for a while. The bad news is -" She spun her screen around and pointed at the webpage.

"5-alpha-reductase deficiency?" - read Yuzuke.

"I took Kaoru to the gynecologist, and we got more news that we bargained for."

...

"Kaoru?" - Hikaru knocked on the door. "Are you in there? I'm back - and I've been wanting to spend some time with my special lady."

The fact that the door was closed had in itself been jarring - Kaoru generally kept it open at least a crack, and in the short time she had lived there Hikaru had gotten used to walking in with only half a knock as warning. But when he tried to turn the handle and found it locked, something in his chest did an uncomfortable flip.

"Not now, Hikaru." Kaoru's voice sounded like it came from the bottom of a well.

"Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, everything's fine."

"If everything's okay, why are you hiding?"

The door stood silent as the grave.

"Look, if it's mom, don't worry about it. I know she talked to you. Dad talked to me too. That's why he took me out golfing. But it's okay. Mom can be scary sometimes, but they're not mad at us. We'll have room checks and curfews and open-door policies from now on, and that sucks, but it'll be okay. We'll get through it -"

The door stared back at him, two matching keyholes like dumb mouths.

"Kaoru, come on. You gotta give me something. Talk to me. Please."

"I can't right now."

"You can't talk to me? Why not?"

"I just can't."

"Kaoru, come on. I'm your -" He paused. Brother? Boyfriend? He was her brother of barely two weeks and her boyfriend of only a few hours, so both seemed like rather weak arguments. "I care about you," he finally said, shifting his tone from slightly playful to more serious. "If something's going on, I want to be there for you, and I want to help."

Silence.

"Look, Hikaru," the door finally answered. "I really just want to be alone for a while."

Hikaru felt the rug get pulled out from under his feet. Alone? He had been gone no more than a few hours. What on earth could have happened? After they had been together the way they had, "alone"? "For a while"? Suddenly the world felt as black and lackluster as it had before he met her. Or rather, no - it felt as if someone had forced Kaoru at gunpoint onto a ship and then tied him to the pier, kicked him in the chest, and left him there to watch her float away. Was it true? Was it really over before it began? Or, worse yet, had she never wanted him in the first place and was only playing along, and he had been to naive to notice?

"Look, Kaoru," he said, taking a breath and furrowing his brow. "You can talk to me now, or three hours from now. But you know me. I'm a stubborn little devil. I am literally not going to move from this spot until I find out what's eating you."


	12. Dawn

"Hikaru, you can't stay here." Yuzuha tapped a stiletto-clad foot on the floor. "You need to go to your room."

Hikaru lay curled up in a ball under Kaoru's door, a pillow under his head and a surly expression on his face.

"No."

"No?"

"No."

Yuzuha hesitated. It had been literally years since Hikaru had talked back to her so unabashedly, and she had almost forgot how to respond in such a context. Were he still ten, she might have ended the conversation right then and there, taken him by the scruff of the collar, and bodily marched him back to his room. But it was to late for that now, and in any case she would not have been physically up to it if she tried.

"I'm not hurting anybody." He sat up, staring between his knees. "It's not like I'm going to break down Kaoru's door. And the hallway's wide enough, so I'm not creating a fire hazard."

Earlier that day, Yuzuha had been happy that his father had taken Hikaru away, because - truth be told - over lunch she could barely stand looking at him. She and Yuzuke had agreed that they first thing they would deal with was the fact that two children had had sex in their house, and leave the incest part of it for later. And in her talk with Kaoru, her first priority had been to make sure that she was alright - for, no matter what she said, Yuzuha was convinced that there was no way on God's green earth that Kaoru to have been competent to make such a decision. To that end, she had stuffed away her revulsion to be dealt with at a later date. After all - with Kaoru, given all she had been through, even that severe of a lapse in judgment might have been forgiven. But Hikaru was another matter entirely. Indeed, if anyone was to blame in all this, it was him, and she found herself growing steadily angrier with him as the day wore on. To think - first he broke the one rule of common decency that every society seemed to share. That alone, were she not his mother, would have been enough to make her never want to see him again. On top of that, he deflowered a poor, parentless girl without so much as a condom, and then asked her to be his "girlfriend" as if that somehow made it okay. And to make matters worse, she had ended up going along with it, poor thing, and now thought that the whole situation somehow had a chance. As if she did not have enough problems already.

And yet, Hikaru was not normally given to theatrics - at least not on this scale. She had almost wanted to roll her eyes and inform him that tomfoolery would not help his cause, but on second thought the sight of her son lying like a beaten dog under Kaoru's door confused her if nothing else, and she squatted down to get a better look at him.

"Hikaru. You seem upset," she said. "Let's talk."

"Darn right I'm upset," he muttered, looking past her.

"Tell me about it?"

She sat down next to him, delicately tucking her calves under her thighs as he pulled his knees up to his chin.

"I just don't understand," he said after a silence. "She told me I made her so happy, and that she'd never felt that way before. And now she won't even look at me…"

"Sounds like you feel pretty rejected." Yuzuha tried hard to keep her voice neutral.

"I mean, is it me? Did I do something wrong?"

Yuzuha sighed. The profound irony of the statement aside, he really did look more distressed than she had ever seen him. The sulking was nothing new, but despite her best efforts Hikaru had grown up a very self-impressed sort, and to see his lip shake as he spoke, desperate for answers as to how his actions affected someone else, was not something she had been expecting.

"No, Hikaru, you didn't," she replied. "In fact, I can tell you with a fair bit of certainty that it wasn't anything you did."

He looked up and turned to face her.

"How do you know?"

"Well, I actually happen to know what Kaoru's going through. It's something she found out today."

"What is it?"

"It's something pretty private. Something having to do with her, uh... health. It's not my place to share it. But I'm pretty sure it's -"

"Is she pregnant?"

"No, Hikaru, that'd one thing she definitely is not."

"Is it cancer?"

"No, it's not cancer."

"Mom, come on..."

"Like I said, it's something she needs to tell you herself. When she's ready."

Hikaru slumped back against the wall.

"I don't get it." He looked away from his mother again. "We've shared so much already. Her parents' death, my time in the hospital, the stuff with her family. What's so different about this?"

"Health can be a very sensitive topic," Yuzuha replied. "I'm sure she'll come around eventually. But you have to be patient. Patience is a very important part of a relationship" - she paused emphatically - "ANY relationship. Forcing her to trip over you if she decides to leave this room isn't going to help."

Hikaru sighed.

"I just wish I could make her feel better… I miss her so much already."

Yuzuha reached out and squeezed his hand.

"You can do this," she said. "We're all capable of more than we know, especially when it comes to the people we love."

...

As Hikaru lay in the silence of his room, the trees in the garden seemed to shine. He did not like crying. Crying, he was convinced, was for babies. And so he held out as long as he could - until a cold wetness began to pool where his nose met his forehead and overflowed onto the pillow. If only he had something to hold - he caught himself thinking - it might have been better. If he had something to hold, he might not be feeling quite so much like he'd been stabbed in the back and left for dead.

But no matter. Kaoru was still gone, as if she never existed. That voice behind the door could not have possibly been her. When he had had his arms around her, for the first time everything in life had felt alright. But now the world was as bare as ever, and home to just as many strangers as before.

He closed his eyes and rolled over on his back, trying to imagine a warm Kaoru beside him - cuddling with her arms around her knees and waiting with that winsome, softly mischievous expression for him to open his eyes. All he had to do was turn over, and she would be there. "Hello, Kaoru, my love," he'd say. "I knew you'd come back." And then he'd place his hand on the small of her back, and she would slide over to lie beside him.

Earlier that day, he and his dad had just gotten past the first hole when Yuzuke had looked at him with his ever-so-unpresumptuous smile and said, "You know, you're not very good at keeping secrets."

"Oh… what makes you say that?" Hikaru had looked up from rummaging through his gear. He felt a chill slide down his back - but only for a moment. He had been cheerfully exercising his avoidance skills to the limit, but he had known this was coming.

"You're very focused. And you're playing well, even though you're out of practice and there's nothing in it for you."

"I guess." Alright, alright, you got me. Now get it over with. It's not like I'm going to go streaking into the bushes.

"Look," said Yuzuke, propping his elbow on the driver. "Your mother and I know what happened with Kaoru. And here's the thing," he said as Hikaru paused midway in his movements, focusing pointedly on the contents of the bag. "You're not in trouble. At least not in the way you think you are. But just so you know, things are going to change. I'm pretty sure you know what you did was wrong, so I'm not going to lecture you. But doors will have to stay open from now on, we'll have the maids checking up ever half-hour, and there will be a 11 pm curfew with room checks. Oh, and if THAT sort of thing happens again, whether with Kaoru or anyone else, use a condom or don't do it at all. That part should be non-negotiable."

"Okay."

Well, that was pretty painless. That's dad for you, after all. Cuts right to the chase.

Hikaru picked out the right club and strolled over to his side.

"Well, good," Yuzuke said. "I'm glad we got that straightened out."

"I'm glad we did too."

They teed off again, and it wasn't until a while later that Yuzuke decided to revisit the conversation. They were walking down the endless stretch of green in search of a ball, and it was so quiet that even the the trees lining the fairway seemed to be empty of birds.

"So, now that the unpleasant part of my fatherly duties is out of the way," said Yuzuke, "May I venture to ask if what happened with Kaoru was a one-time thing, or is there something more to it? - and don't lie, now." He smiled. "I'll know."

"No, there was definitely something more to it." The ease with which the words came took Hikaru by surprise.

"Really. Is that how you both feel?"

"Yes." Hikaru paused. "At least I'm pretty sure. I told her how I felt and she said she felt the same."

"I see. And how DO you feel?"

The sky stood like a brilliant dome over their heads, and the outline of Mr. Fuji was a brilliant canvas. They could not see the city from where they were, and the air was cold for the time of year, but it only made Hikaru feel more alive, a silhouette delineated sharply from the surroundings.

"I care about her - a lot. I want to be everything to her, and I never want to think about anyone else."

They walked in silence for a few moments.

"You do realize it's going to be difficult for the two of you," Yuzuke said. "After all, your mom and I - we're obviously not going to treat you any differently, but other people - well, I probably don't need to tell you that they might be made very, very uncomfortable."

Indeed, the entire day Yuzuke had done his utmost not to show it, but he had been grappling with the fact just the same, and was only just starting to believe it. He still did not want to imagine it. But Hikaru was his son. The son he had bounced on his knee, and to whom he had read books, and whom he had taught everything from tips and tricks in Photoshop to the proper way to hold a steak knife. That fact alone was all that kept him going.

"Well, no one needs to know, do they?" said Hikaru, adjusting his newsboy cap.

"Well, you're right there." Yuzuke had to force himself to form the words, and focused his eyes on an observation booth on the horizon. "I suppose as far as what you do in the privacy of your home, no one does need to know. But women like to be able to tell their friends, my husband this, my boyfriend that. It might be fine for a man to remain a confirmed old bachelor, but women want white weddings, and rings, and babies." He paused, searching Hikaru's profile for a reaction. The boy turned slightly paler as the freckles across his cheekbones grew sharper. "Women who are not married by 25 are called Christmas cakes - do you know why?"

Hikaru shook his head, squinting at something in the grass.

"Because you can't sell a Christmas cake after December 25 without a significant discount," said Yuzuke. "And as unfair and somewhat dehumanizing a comparison as this might be" - he chuckled - "It's true - a relationship for a woman is a status symbol, and in the eyes of many, a measure of her worth. That's something you might want to think about - for Kaoru's sake."

At the time, Hikaru had bristled at the suggestion – especially when but like THAT - though he decided not to fight it. But he had definitely not thought about it that way. All he knew, up to that point, was that when it came to Kaoru, whenever he saw her he had an uncontrollable urge to hug her so tight she could barely breathe, and hiss, "NO! MINE!" at anyone who came near her. Indeed, the idea of anyone else with Kaoru - much less conducting her down the aisle - made him want to beat the living daylights out of the man in question with a two-by-four full of rusty nails. He was not so naive, of course, that he thought they could share their relationship with the world and see it met with nothing but love and understanding. Even he, when confronted with his out-of-nowhere desire, had not been able to ignore the little voice in his head that whispered, "but she's your SISTER." Indeed, at first he had felt duly disgusting, and wanted to smack himself every time he thought of her that way, or found his hand reaching out for hers. But even feeling disgusting - or better yet, the prospect of being seen as such - did not appear half bad when he thought of Kaoru's soft skin and her eyes, both gently mocking him like those of the proud girl that she was, and asking him, with a smile on her face, to come and hold her. That's it: just hold and lie in the grass and breathe in the smell of greenery and sun and sakura petals. He didn't just want to sleep with her - he wanted to hold her. And if that was the case, how bad could it be? After all, whether by the fault of his parents or not, he had grown up on a bit of pedestal, thinking of the world's hierarchy in terms of Yuzuha-and-Yuzuke, then him, and then the rest. As a result, he had always considered morality in relative, mostly consequentialist terms. And the fact that she was his sister made it even more exciting. He had always wanted a secret, a world all of his own. He simply had not realized that he did not just want it for himself - he wanted to share it with someone.

But he never stopped to think how Kaoru felt about it. What he would do if someone took Kaoru away he could imagine very well. But he had never asked himself what he would do if one day Kaoru decided she wanted someone else who could give her more.

In fact, he realized in the dark, maybe his dad's words were prophetic. Maybe Kaoru had come to her senses. After all - love? Between siblings? Love LIKE THAT? Not in this world, and - free spirit though she was - Kaoru was also the practical sort who would have realized this quickly. As for him, he really was a disgusting, sick motherfucker. There were some three billion women in the world, and he had to go and pick his sister to get the hots for, then get the poor thing drunk, and take her virginity. He was such a sick bastard he did not belong in polite society. He certainly did not deserve Kaoru. Indeed, he did not deserve anything.

...

It could had been worse, of course. She could have been set completely adrift after her parents passed. Or, she could have been in the car with them, and then her life might have been ripped from her body as metal twisted and scorched rubber stained the pavement.

But over the last few weeks, sit felt like she lost everything in rapid succession. First her parents. Then her home. Then her family. And then there was her hair, her virginity - and now her gender, too… Yuzuha had been right. It was too much for anyone to handle.

What do you become, she wondered, when you lose all you thought had defined you? Just a person whose silly heart keeps on beating because it doesn't know how to do anything else.

That morning, in the shower with Hikaru, she had had a hint of what it might have felt like to be a woman. He had finished between her thighs just as the warm pleasure came to resonate nearly head to toe, and it seemed like he had known she enjoyed herself, and kissed her deeply under the steaming streams, his hands laying claim hungrily to her body in a way he seemed too shy to have done the night before. It made her feel like never before - powerful would have been a good word for it - and as she stepped out of the shower - first - she let the towel hang looser around her, so he could catch a glimpse of where her back dipped into two buttons between her hips and curved to meet her backside.

But now, she stood under the same hot needles amid the same white tiles, and - as if the hours of weeping from before had not been enough - her chest began to shake as tears mixed with running water. The way he'd held her, the way he'd wanted her - it was all a lie. Everything was a lie. And everything was wrong - she thought, as she scraped the skin of her chest, abs, and thighs with a loofah, already angry from the scalding water. It hurt, but it did not matter. She would have rubbed it clean off if she could. The same skin, the same hard muscles and angular bones that Hikaru touched, that had been the bane of her existence from day one - she scraped it all, desperately wishing she had a bullwhip to take to it instead.

Ever since her parents passed, everything had been wrong. And getting more wrong by the second. But no - maybe she was the one who was wrong, and had been all along. After all, lusting after her own brother, and having testes in her abdomen - what did that make her? Nothing short of a freak. A creep. Disgusting. A lacking girl, an abortive boy - what was the doctor's term for it? "A boy, but it didn't work out?" How fitting. How FUCKING fitting. Heck, maybe it made sense that all these things were happening to her. These sorts of things never happened to normal people.

Indeed, maybe these things were the universe's way of having realized its mistake, and trying to wipe her off the face of earth. She rubbed harder as the streams pounded against her head. Well, in that case, rip the skin off, peel away the flesh, let it dissolve down the drain - none of it mattered. The concave stomach and the gangly legs with knobbly knees suddenly felt very far away, and as images of her and Hikaru pressed against the tiles in a consanguineous embrace came back, she wanted to vomit. Had they never slept together - indeed, had her sense and moral compass not been knocked off-kilter by all that had occurred, she may never have known. But they had, and she did, and this was her punishment.

Inconvenient though it was, she would have to tell him. He had been right. Now or three hours from now, she would have to face him eventually. And then -

She turned off the shower, stepped out of the booth, and wrapped a towel around herself, the threads stinging her skin. She then walked back to the room and pulled open a drawer - the same drawer that she had rummaged through the previous morning. Extracting a shirt and a pair of pants, she pulled them on by the gray sliver of dawn that lay across the carpet, and opened the door a crack. The hallway was dark and silent, and she made her way to the stairs with a soft, measured step.

Outside, the world had not yet woken. The stars were melting into the sky, but the streetlamps still bled a pale light onto the pavement, and sleep lay so thick over the streets that even the trees barely stirred. Kaoru walked quickly, past mansion gate after mansion gate, the slaps of her shoes echoing against the pavement. It was not until she emerged onto Platinum Street, Shirokanedai's famous shopping district, that she began to feel cold - but by then, the sky had begun to show a strip of pink, and she quickened her step, breaking into a run as her eyes scanned the boulevard.

…

Mori had applied for his driving permit the first day he was legally able to do so. It had never been any secret - Mori loved cars. Although he was not yet legally able to drive, he knew a great deal about them, and had designed his own custom Hummer, which he then got as a present from his parents. And ever since that day, he had enjoyed taking it on drives almost every morning around dawn, with Honey by his side. Since Honey's birthday was earlier, he had gotten his license as soon as he could as well, and always came as the "chaperone" - a requirement for anyone with merely a permit. Of course, the idea of Honey acting a chaperone was ludicrous, as he had had gotten his license for Mori's sake only, and had not driven a mile since. But he still liked to support Mori's hobby, and sitting in the front seat and watching the fingers of pink light creep over the rooftops was an uplifting way to start the day, especially when he got to share it in silence with his friend. That's how you knew you found someone special - he thought, letting his eyes meander over the windowpanes of a restaurant, the umbrellas on the sidewalk folded like bats sleeping upside down. When you could share a silence and have it feel perfectly comfortable - like an old, familiar blanket.

Honey began to feel himself getting carsick, and closed his eyes. It did not matter. Driving with Mori was still his favorite part of the morning. Nothing made him feel more safe than to being his friend's side, his face calm as the eye of the storm and his hands on the steering wheel, the purring, two-tonn shell of metal a fitting extension of his body.

Which is why it came as a rude shock when the seatbelt cut into Honey's chest as the car screeched to a halt with a bump.

"What the? -" Mori raised himself up in his seat to peer farther over the hood, then undid his seatbelt and leaped out of the car before Honey could blink.

When Honey had climbed out of the car, making heavy use of the stair step by the front passenger door, Mori was kneeling over a shape on the ground a few yards away, and seemed to be on the phone. Honey ran over to his side, and his heart nearly jumped out of his throat. The figure on the ground had a shock of red hair, and looked exactly like -

"Hika-chan?!" Honey let out a cry that was almost a sob.

Granted, for some reason "Hika-chan" was wearing an oversized T-shirt that read "Love Pink," along with what looked like loose yoga pants, but it was hardly a time to split hairs. Especially when the mat of red hair was quickly growing dark with blood, and the body's arm lay twisted at an odd angle.

"Wait, don't touch him," Mori commanded - to the extent that he ever assumed a commanding tone with Honey. "If he broke anything, that will make it worse. Let's let the professionals handle it."

Mori's face looked ashen even under his tan, and Honey had no choice but to obey, squatting by Hikaru's side and pressing a hand to his cheek.

"Hika-chan…" he whispered, his eyes filling with tears. His lip began to shake and he dug his fingers into Usa-chan in vain hope that it would help his friend hold on a little longer. "Please, please be alright, Hika-chan. None of us are gonna be alright without you…"

Mori finished his call and snapped his phone shut, resting a hand on Honey's shoulder. Honey looked up, cheeks wet with tears. He had not wanted to think about it, and a part of him still did not believe it, and yet -

"Takashi… How?" - his eyes pled.

"I don't know," Mori's voice's sounded as flattened as he looked, as if a car had hit him too and driven over him. "I should have braked faster. But he appeared out of nowhere."

Hikaru tried to roll his head just a little, but Mori's hand stopped it just short of moving far. He mumbled as his eyes shifted under half-closed lids, but there was no recognition in his face. Which, at the end of the day, was unsurprising. Hikaru did not look like he was in any shape to recognize anything.

…

The sound of the phone cut through Yuzuha's sleep like a knife. The phone in her room had a nice, loud ring -and she had purposefully programmed it that way in case of emergency. But there had never been any emergencies - at least not ones bad enough to warrant her secretary putting calls through, and not at at what felt like the middle of the night.

She pulled the eye-pillow off her face, rolled over, and fumbled for the receiver.

"Hello?" - she stifled a yawn.

"Hello," she heard a young man's voice, and it sounded like the speaker had never been faint of heart, but had either been hit over the head with a cast-iron skillet, or seen all four horsemen of the apocalypse. "I'm really sorry to bother you, Mrs. Hitachiin, but my name is Takashi Morinozuka. I believe you might know my parents, and I'm one of - " he paused - "your son's friends…"

"Yes, Takashi?" It was far too early in the morning to try and recall if she knew anyone named Morinozuka, but she decided to give him the benefit of a doubt.

"Well, I'm very sorry, but there's been an accident and I hit, er, your son with my car… He's on his way to the hospital, he's alive, and he's made noises and moved his hands and feet some. I just thought you'd want to hear it from me…"

Yuzuha sat up so violently the entire bed logged a 9 on the Richter scale and Yuzuke jumped up as well, taking hold of her by the shoulders.

Yuzuha lowered the receiver to her lap, turned fifty shades of green, and looked like she was about to vomit.

"Get Toroko. Now." She commanded to her husband without turning around. "Tell her to get Kaoru - use the key if you have to. And a car. We'll need a car."

Yuzuke launched himself out of bed without a word, and Yuzuha raised the phone to her ear again.

"Which hospital?" she asked, her voice that of one stabbed.

She closed her eyes and listen, then nodded. When the boy finished giving her the hospital name and address, she asked him to stay on the line even though neither had much to say anymore. They sat like that for several minutes until Yuzuke burst back into the room. Toroko was following on his heels, looking a might stricken even in the face of her usual impeccable professionalism.

"Uh, I'm sorry, Mrs. Hitachiin," she said as soon as she was in sight. "But Kaoru's not in her room… In fact, I can't find her anywhere."

Yuzuha looked up at the maid, her mind struggling to snap back to the here and now, and then the door flew open again and Hikaru appeared, wiping sleep from his eyes and his clothes from the previous night showing every sign of having been slept in.

"…and neither can Hikaru," added Toroko.

Yuzuha's face turned as grey as if she had seen a ghost. She swallowed and slowly pressed the receiver tighter to her ear.

"Takashi, are you still there?" she asked in a quivering voice. "I have… good news. The good news is, that wasn't Hikaru you hit. Hikaru's right here with me. In fact, you can even talk to him if you like…"


	13. Eight Letters

"Okay, someone REALLY needs to tell me what the hell is going on."

Hikaru was pacing the floor of the waiting room with his hands clasped behind his back.

"Hikaru, lower your voice," pleaded Yuzuha.

Yuzuha, Yuzuke, Honey, and Mori sat in a tense line, following him with their eyes. Yuzuha had not let go of her husband's arm the entire way, and wore no makeup - testimony to a nervous breakdown whose magnitude might have warranted commission to the psych ward of the selfsame hospital.

"Why?!" He spun around. "My fucking sister was hit by a car and is in the hospital - why the hell should I?!"

"Because it won't help. It won't help you, it won't help any of us, and it definitely won't help Kaoru."

"Oh, don't talk to me about what will and won't help Kaoru!" Hikaru stopped in his tracks. "First - well, you know what happened. Then suddenly she comes down with some mysterious health problem and shuts herself up in her room. And the next thing we know she throws herself under a moving car -"

"We DON'T know that," snapped Yuzuha, her voice suddenly hollow. "She might have been jaywalking."

"Who the hell jaywalks at five o'clock in the morning?! - and from between parked cars? Mori - you said there wasn't a crosswalk anywhere in sight, right? And she did come from between parted cars, right?"

"Right." Mori nodded. Considering the circumstances, he was holding up well, even after Yuzuha had grilled him - without guile but continuously and persistently for an entire hour. And while Mori seemed to have dealt with the situation by turning into a robot devoted gear and circuit to reconstructing the scenario for whoever asked, a part of him appeared grateful for Honey clutching his forearm almost as tightly as he clasped Usa-chan.

Hikaru turned back to his mother with a vindictive look. "Where was she in such a hurry to get to, huh?!"

Yuzuha brought her hands to her temples.

"Yuzuha, don't be cruel," said Yuzuke. "Tell him."

"You know I can't do that. It's not my secret to tell. Not without Kaoru's permission."

"Well, Kaoru might not be able to give her permission for a while."

"Uh, excuse me?" Honey piped up in a small voice. "But are you sure you want us to be here for this? This seems like a private, family matter." He glanced at Mori, who looked like he agreed wholeheartedly that the two of them had landed in the middle of a drama worthy of Shakespeare himself.

"Yes, we do," Hikaru retorted before his parents could react. "I need at least SOMEONE on my side." He glared as hard as he dared at Yuzuha.

"Excuse me -"

They all looked up and saw a man in a white coat.

"Who here are the Hitachiins?"

Yuzuha, Yuzuke, and Hikaru raised their hands.

"Will you follow me? There's been a - development."

"No, Hikaru, you stay here," said Yuzuha as she rose, collecting what she could of her imperious demeanor. Evidently, the presence of a white coat helped.

"Oh, wonderful - more things you want to keep from me?" Hikaru glared at his mother - this time openly.

"No. You're a mess - Kaoru shouldn't see you like this, and you're in no shape to see her either. Stay with your friends." She glanced at Honey and Mori. "Get yourself together."

Hikaru collapsed into a chair by Mori's side, grumbling darkly. Yuzuha spoke and looked as if she was primed to slap him if he did not obey, so he had no choice but to watch his parents' backs disappear down the hallway. Cold needles chased hot ones down his arms and legs, and his head felt heavy. The three of them sat in silence for a moment.

"So. You have a sister," said Mori, after a respectable amount of time. "Explain?"

…

"Well, the good news is, except for a collapsed lung, a shallow cut to the scalp, some bruising, and some torn muscles and tendons in the leg, there is nothing at all wrong with her," the intern on duty said, having ascertained that Yuzuha and Yuzuke were indeed Kaoru's guardians, pending notification of her original family. He was a smiling, perfectly coiffed man in his mid-to-late twenties - and apparently fresh enough out of medical school to maintain a sunny disposition despite a daily onslaught of the most colorful traumas Tokyo had to offer.

Yuzuha stared at the doctor dully, apparently paying no heed to the derisive expression that was slowly forming on her face.

"Nothing at all wrong with her?" she repeated.

"It could have been a lot worse, ma'am," the doctor said, looking up from Kaoru's chart with the dutiful air of an honor-student. "Miss Kaoru's been very lucky. There are no broken bones, and there hasn't been much internal bleeding. The only thing is -" he paused, glancing down at the notes again - "And keep in mind, she is on a lot of pain meds right now. But she seems alert enough and she has been saying some… disturbing things. So we just wanted to make sure…"

"W-what kind of things?"

"Well," The doctor lowered his voice, even though he, Yuzuha, and Yuzuke were in a curtained-off portion of the ER reserved for speaking to families. "She's been saying that she is a failure, and cannot do anything right - not even end her own life."

Yuzuha raised her fist to her mouth with a soft gasp, and her lips spasmed, their corners curling violently upward.

"Has your… Has Miss Kaoru been in any emotional distress lately?"

…

"And… and I guess that's the gist of it. Don't tell anyone else yet, though, alright?" Hikaru said, looking first to Honey and then to Mori, to whom he had been recounting the story for the last fifteen minutes. They had at first interrupted every few seconds with questions, but as Hikaru talked on and filled them in on everything minus how he really felt and what happened between the sheets they fell silent, Honey's vociferous awe replaced by what Hikaru could only peg as incredulity.

"Alright, we won't tell." Honey nodded, looking down pensively at the top of Usa-chan's head. He was still clutching the bunny like a lifeline - and the same thing went for Mori's forearm, though the rest of the shota's body had relaxed quite a bit. "I just hope Kao-chan's going to be okay, so we can meet her for real. She seems really nice - and really brave. I can't imagine going through all that…"

Hikaru could not help but smile, inwardly. Honey had known Kaoru - or rather known of her - for all of an hour, and already he was appending "chan" to her name. Sometimes, a patented Honey-ism really was all you needed.

Mori nodded with a glance at Honey. "Either way, I'm never driving again," he said.

"Takashi, no!" Honey gasped, tightening his hold on his friend's sleeve.

"Yes. I'm putting the Hummer up for sale as soon as we get home."

Hikaru was about to respond, but a swell of emotion had gripped him by the throat. And then Yuzuha appeared, her face a good deal more grave than before.

"Boys." She nodded at Mori and Honey, her eye-movements jerky and seemingly set on avoiding Hikaru. "The doctors say Kaoru will be alright. So hopefully you'll be able to see her at some point soon, if you want." She paused, blinking at something invisible in front of her. "Hikaru, I need to speak to you."

He looked up at his mother.

"In fact, I think we might need a few minutes," she added, still looking at the other two boys.

"Okay. We'll be right here," said Honey with a smile, and hopped out of his chair. Having heard that Kaoru would be alright, a bit more of his anxiety seemed to have rolled off his back, and he tugged Mori, whose movements remained wooden, to the other end of the waiting room.

Once they were alone, Yuzuha motioned Hikaru to get up and to follow. They walked in silence, and Hikaru had lost count of the rolling gurneys, hurrying scrubbed-up staff, and mass-produced framed art they had passed when Yuzuha turned into the nook of another waiting room. This one was deserted except for a vending machine in the corner, the fluorescent lights above it somehow extra-bright for lack of windows.

"Kaoru's in there," she gestured with her eyes at a door at the opposite side of the hall, which was open a crack to reveal a curtain of the kind that divided rooms for added privacy. "But before you go in, I'm going to have to tell you something." She indicated a chair. "You might want to sit."

…

Although he had been a miffed that his mother had separated him from his friends in what felt like another power-play, in the end he realized she had been very astute in making him sit. And considering the state he was in, he quickly grew thankful that Honey and Mori were not there to see him.

"This… This is bullshit," he had stammered when Yuzuha first finished explaining.

And Yuzuha had made a concerted, visibly indulgent effort to keep a straight face as she insisted that no, it was not, and that she could only wish it were.

She then watched as he spent what seemed like ages running his eyes over the article on her tablet - until he finally snapped at her to stop staring, throwing a few more choice phrases into the bargain. Given the circumstances, Yuzuha seemed determined not to fight, and simply asked if he wanted to be alone. He said yes, and she had walked away, and ever since then alone was what he had been, his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands, the tablet on the floor where he had dropped it. The last he could remember was the outline of his mother's hand tucking a lock of hair behind her ear as she disappeared into Kaoru's room.

At first, he could not think. He did not know what to think.

Kaoru, a boy? But… But… It was unsettling as hell, and he certainly could not blame Kaoru for what she did now that he knew. Were he in her shoes, he might have done much worse. Heck, even from where he stood he was not sure what exactly was keeping him together. And yet… In retrospect, there were things - small things - that were about as prophetic as a gong in the face. The way her voice did not match her long hair when he first saw her. And the the way they looked so alike that his only option was to stop thinking about it lest he went cracked and took up believing in the supernatural as the only explanation. "Hitachiin, are you sure that's a sister?" - his neighbor in the hospital had tried to be funny. Well, it was funny alright… Bloody hilarious, in fact, the way even the most decisive, most unambiguous piece of evidence had been a red herring.

And, supposing it were true, where would they go from here? The way he had held her, the way he had been inside - the way she had sighed and let her body go soft against his, was it all gone? Was it all a lie? He had never thought of himself as gay, or even bi, and a part him still did not want to go there. Of course, another part wondered if it even mattered, given the state of things "down there" with Kaoru. And yet, no - it did matter, it only because Kaoru might be the one who would want to change. He did not know what he himself might have done in such a case, but what if Kaoru ended up deciding she wanted to be more like a man, given that she technically was one?

He hated to admit it, but now that he thought about it, the things that had drawn him most to Kaoru were the subtle little feminine things - made more lovely still by her otherwise androgynous - nay, sexless - demeanor. The way she automatically pulled back a little and dropped her eyes when touched, even as she stood tall and straight so as not to be knocked off balance. The way she liked to toy with wisps of her hair, even though she no longer had a long, luxurious mane. The way her voice fell low and soft when asked about herself even though she was more than capable of looking people in the eye and giving it to them straight. The way she had looked so translucent and brave in her black kimono. The way she had cocked her head this way and that, tentatively at first and then with a touch of shoddily pasted-on pride, as she appraised her new haircut in the mirror. How kind she had looked when she had told him to get up, and that he wasn't an idiot - even Yuzuha, at her most Audrey-Hebpurn indulgent, could not have held a candle to her. The night she had been drunk, and kept skipping ahead and glancing over her shoulder - the only time he had seen a hint of flirtatious Daphne in her eyes, who both wanted to be followed and didn't - but mostly wanted to prank her admirer by turning into a tree. The way she had been, with her peachy warm skin, when she had first given him first her hand, then her hair, and then her self - that indescribable something that marked her as his without a single spoken word.

The truth was, he was afraid, though mostly of himself. Kaoru was alive and would be alright, if Yuzuha was to be believed - that much had eased his mind. But when the dust settled, they might not be the same people anymore, and he might end up being the man whose word was only good until morning. With anyone else, he might not have minded. But Kaoru was the one person he could not bear to lie to or to disappoint.

"Hikaru? Are you doing okay?" He heard his mother's voice above him.

He raised his head and saw the vending machine in its pool of light, cold and bright like a some cosmic convection oven. Yuzuha had sat down by his side and placed a hand on the arm-rest of his chair. She had gathered herself a little more since the last time he had seen her, and was almost back to her warm, slightly pillowy self, complete with a fresh set of sticks in her hair.

He nodded.

"What's on your mind?"

"I… I don't know." He said after a moment. "I guess I'm just not sure what's going to happen now."

"Well, nothing needs to happen right away. For one thing, I wouldn't even recommend letting her know that you know just yet."

"Yeah. Uh-huh. Right." Hikaru chuckled ruefully.

"Which, granted, might be a challenge," Yuzuha continued. "But you wanted to know, and clearly Kaoru's having a hard time with it, just like you are. In fact, it might be a while before she's ready to talk at all, so you probably have a little bit of time to get used to the idea. But that doesn't mean you can't try and be there for her. In other ways."

Hikaru nodded, drawing a long sigh. The vending machine, its bright rows of offerings stared back at him, its bottom row of buttons a long grin.

"Do you want to go see her? She's awake, and she wants to see you."

Hikaru paused mid-breath. "She - she does?"

"Yes."

Hikaru turned and looked at his mother.

"How… is she?"

"Same as before. But I think you should go and see for yourself."

Hikaru looked at his hands. Kaoru. Wanted to see him. It immediately made him so disgusted with himself it turned his stomach. Here he was, rehashing things and analyzing what exactly had tickled his fancy, when Kaoru - boy or girl, it didn't matter - was a door away and needed him.

He got up, picked up Yuzuha's tablet from the floor and handed it back to her. She smiled, the way she was wont to do, with just the corners of her mouth, and for a second he thought he saw a a dollop of smile dilute her coffee-brown eyes.

…

Hikaru walked into the room and stepped around the curtain, and as soon as he did a wave of guilt ten miles high swept him off his feet. Someone had tried to wrap Kaoru in a blanket, but there was still a very visible tube coming out of the side of her chest, the blood around it only partially wiped away. There was also an IV taped to her arm, and two tubes up her nose. Half of her hair was swept apart to reveal the steel claws of stitches. And an entire arm lay exposed and was turning violent purple where the skin had not been scraped off by what he could only guess was the road.

Kaoru's eyes had been closed when he walked in, but they opened as his shadow fell on the bed.

He had not thought about it until then, but if he had not done what he did - if he had only thought with his head and not with something else - she might not have found out, at least not for a while. And she might have been happy and secure in who she was, instead of seeking her fate under the wheels of a moving car.

"Kaoru - I…"

He took a step closer. Her eyes were sad in a way that made the dull, heavy light of the room wander into them and get lost. But more than that they were almost apologetic, as if he had caught at less than her best and embarrassed her.

…Love you.

I love you. And I'm an irredeemable, irredeemable ass. And no matter what we are to each other from now on - no matter who you are and who you choose to be, I will spend every day of my life trying to make it up to you. Because I love you and love means it's not about me anymore.

He came over to her side and took her hand. It was cool and limp and smaller than he remembered. He fell to his knees - or would have, but was stopped halfway by the sideboard of the bed.

He could not say what he thought, no. If he did right then, she might think it was only because she had a tube in her chest, and a moment's emotion was making him say things he did not mean.

And by then, he could not have said very much anyway. The tears had come all on their own, and it took all he had to simply squeeze her hand and keep a semblance of a straight face as she watched him from behind her tube-mask. Her expression had not changed, and for a moment he wondered if she had perhaps been paralyzed. But then she shifted her head, and he felt her fingers move and squeeze, weakly, against his.

"Kaoru," he managed finally strain the words through his throat. Suddenly, he felt so sad, it was enough to engulf the world. "How… how could you sell yourself short like this?"

Kaoru slowly raised her eyebrows. "Huh?…" She did not seem to have much strength to talk - though it may have been the tubes.

"You're so… You're so… Wonderful…" He all but cringed at the impotence of the word. "You've… got so much to give the world. I… I'm sorry… I didn't do enough to show you that…"

Kaoru wrinkled her forehead, and lips spread into a sad smile.

"You're… biased."

"No, Kaoru…" He gripped her hand tighter to maintain some control over the new tsunami of tears that was brewing in his throat. "I'm not… I know I'm not. Hell…" He paused, squeezing his eyes shut as tears gathered in the corners, the lids stinging so violently it was getting difficult to breathe. "If you got a heartless devil like me to care…"

Kaoru stared back dispassionately, but the tears were coming freely by then, mixed together with sobs that shook him from head to toe. He could hardly see her.

I love you, I love you, I love you - he wanted to shout. And anyone who wants to separate us will have to chop off my hand. They could hack me into a thousand pieces, and I still won't stop loving you, or stop trying to make you see yourself as you truly are.

"Hika - Hikaru, you're… hurting me…"

Hikaru let go a loud sob and opened his eyes. Sure enough, had been cinching Kaoru's hand so tightly her fingers had turned red and the ends of her lips were twitching.

"Oh, fuck…"

Another sob shook his chest, and before he knew what he was doing, he had swept the covers aside - thankfully the awful chest tube and the machines were on the other side - and his arms and legs were around her, and he had pulled the blanket almost up to their chins. Kaoru let out a small, surprised squeak, just like she had THEN, but did not move, and, truthfully, he had barely heard it. He dug his fingers and face into her flesh, still so warm and soft and solid in spite of it all, and wanted to weep like a baby. But something kept him back, and instead he just lay, his breaths ragged, feeling her heart beat, the echo of a machine answering with slight delay. He breathed in her scent - the smell of girls' bedrooms and fresh showers - and let it take him away. It was a scent he would have picked out anywhere - on a busy train or in a crowded coat check room - on a street in the rain, or amid the sickly-sweet smell of antiseptic and industrially laundered sheets.

"Kaoru… Kaoru…" He repeated.

He did not know how much time had passed, when the abandon to which he had given himself up was abruptly cut short.

"HIKARU, HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND?! THIS IS A HOSPITAL!"

The voice had been preceded by the pattering clack of stilettos, but by the time he had heard it, it was too late.

When he poked his head out from under the covers, and sure enough, Yuzuha was standing across the room looking more like a kettle ready to boil over than he had ever seen her.

"I am going to close my eyes and count to three," she said, enunciating every word with the deadly precision of a diesel hammer, "At the end of which time, you will be on the other side of the room, and more grounded than you have ever been in your life."


End file.
